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The Encyclopedia of 
Sunday Schools and 
Religious Education 


Giving a World-Wide View of the History and Progress of the 
Sunday School and the Development of Religious Education 
Complete in Three Royal Octavo Volumes 












‘ Editors-in-Chief 
JOHN T. McFARLAND, D.D., LL.D. 


Late Editor of Sunday School Publications, Methodist Episcopal Church, New York City 


BENJAMIN S. WINCHESTER, D.D. 


Department of Religious Education, Yale School of Religion, Yale University 
New Haven, Conn. 


Canadian Editor 
Rk. DOUGLAS FRASER, D.D. 
Editor Presbyterian Sunday School Publications, Toronto, Canada 


European Editor 


REV. J. WILLIAMS BUTCHER 


Secretary Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School Department, London, England 





NEW YORK 
THOMAS NELSON & SONS 


LONDON 





EDINBURGH TORONTO 





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PREFACE 


An EncycuLopepia oF Reticious Epucation.—The last two decades have wit- 
nessed a remarkable development in religious education. Up to the present time 
there has been no book of general reference covering this field. ‘The sources of in- 
formation on the subject are widely scattered and for the majority of people inacces- 
sible, making inquiry tedious and baffling. This work presents for the first time in 
compact form a survey of all phases of religious education. 

A CompENDIUM OF SuNDAY ScHooL Work.—The Sunday school is the only 
agency which attempts to provide formal instruction in religion for persons of all 
ages. Upon the Sunday school in the United States rests the entire responsibility for 
supplying, in any systematic way, the religious element in popular education. The 
church derives eighty-five per cent of its membership from the Sunday school and 
is very properly extending the functions of the Sunday school and correlating its” 
work with other forms of religious education. To meet the demands laid upon it 
the Sunday school must be not only thoroughly organized; it must be generously 
equipped and provided with wise and expert leadership in every department. There 

4Is a growing appreciation of the significance of the Sunday school as an. educational 
", agency, accompanied by a widespread desire to know the essential facts of its history 
—~and to become acquainted with the most approved principles and methods. 
'S  Scorzr.—The work thus covers the whole field of religious education. As the 
Sunday school is generally the oldest and most inclusive agency for religious instruc- 
© tion in the community, many will seek first the essential facts regarding its history, 
-* progress, and present status; its organization and conduct, departments, officers, 
| el teachers, pupils; its material and methods of instruction, courses of study, lesson 
| helps, library, equipment, organized classes, anniversary days; its worship and spirit- 
4 ual power, Sunday-school music, Sunday-school evangelism, the Children’s Church. 
me However important this organization, it should be viewed, nevertheless, not only in 
<its appropriate setting within the church, but also with due regard to proper per- 
; spective, as a community force and in its relation to other forces in the community. 
: go it is clearly recognized, therefore, that the presentation must include a treatment of 
allied organizations and movements, both within the church and without, whose 
| ad is to provide education in religion, and more broadly speaking, to secure child 
© welfare. Young People’s Societies, the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A., and the Daily 
a Vacation Bible School Association may be numbered among the more distinctively 
religious agencies; while the National Child Labor Committee, the Federal Children’s 
Bureau, the Juvenile Court are examples of constructive and corrective agencies 
~ which though not avowedly religious, yet have a distinct bearing upon religious 
‘\ education. , 
| SciENTIFIC.—There are informing articles upon many subjects relating to the 
~ science of education, the principles upon which religious education must be based, 
», and the approved methods in accordance with which all progress in Sunday-school 
instruction must be achieved. The contribution of psychology and pedagogy to the 
iii | 


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iv PREFACE 


work of the Sunday school and to the work of religious education in general, the uses 
of biography and the scientific adaptation of all means so as to secure definite results 
in character—all have a place within this work. 

INTERDENOMINATIONAL.—The encyclopedia is interdenominational in character 
and contains a comprehensive survey of organizations and methods of educational 
work in the various denominations in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and 
Australia. Other articles deal with the broader aspects of religious education in the 
United States and in various countries of continental Europe—Norway, Sweden, 
Denmark, Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The general statistics 
regarding church membership and Sunday-school enrollment have been collected 
with the utmost care by the most reliable expert in this field. No pains have been 
spared to render them entirely trustworthy. 

IMPARTIAL.—The work is impartial and free from partisanship. While the chief 
aim is to exhibit the work of religious education under Christian auspices, apprecia- 
tive articles are included setting forth the methods of religious education among the 
Mohammedans, Hindus, Chinese, and Japanese. 

A1m.—The Encyclopedia of Sunday Schools and Religious Education aims to 
serve not only the small minority of people who are already well-informed; it would 
also furnish genuine help to the rank and file who are engaged in, or interested in, 
any phase of the work of religious education. It would aid all those who wish to 
obtain a broad outlook over the entire field, and desire to gain an intelligent grasp 
of the present problems. 

Srarr OF CONTRIBUTORS.—Over six hundred subjects are treated in the work 
by a staff of more than three hundred writers, each one an acknowledged specialist 
in his field. Among the consulting editors are included the editors and educational 
secretaries of various denominations, and others who have become widely recognized 
as leaders in religious education, have cordially codperated in the undertaking. 


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REV. J.WILLIAMS BUTCHER. 


BENJAMIN 5. WINCHESTER,DD. 


The Editors 

















EDITORS 
JOHN T. McFARLAND, D.D., and BENJAMIN S. WINCHESTER, D.D. 


CANADIAN EDITOR 
R. DOUGLAS FRASER, D.D. 


BRITISH EDITOR 
REV. J. WILLIAMS BUTCHER 


CONSULTING EDITORS 


S. T. Bartuett, D.D. 


General Secretary of the Department of 
Sunday Schools and Young People’s So- 
cieties of the Methodist Church in Can- 
ada, Toronto, Canada. 


CHRISTOPHER R. BLacKALL, D.D. 


Editor, Sunday School Periodicals of 
the American Baptist Publication So- 
ciety, Philadelphia, Pa. 


Epwin B. CHAPPELL, D.D. 


Sunday School Editor of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, Nashville, 
Tenn. 


- George A. Coz, Pu.D., LL.D. 


Skinner and McAlpine Professor of 
Practical Theology, Union Theological 
Seminary, New York City. 


Henry F. Corr, Pu.D., LL.D. 


General Secretary, The Religious Edu- 
cation Association, Chicago, Ill. 


RaupH E. DirrenporFer, M.A., B.D. 


Sunday School Secretary of the Mis- 
sionary Education Movement of the 
United States and Canada, New York 
City. 

W. H. Dounsar, D.D. 
Chairman, Sunday School Literature 


Committee, General Synod of the 
Lutheran Church, Baltimore, Md. 


E. Morris Frerausson, D.D. 


Educational Superintendent of Sunday 
School Missions, Presbyterian Board 
of Publication and Sunday School 
Work, Philadelphia, Pa. | 


BisHor H. H. Four, D.D. 


Church of the United Brethren in 
Christ, Dayton, Ohio. 


Vv 


Witiiam E. Garpner, Rev. 
General Secretary, General Board of 
Religious Education, Protestant Epis- 
copal Church, New York City. 

Jesse L. Hurisut, D.D. 
Former Editor of Sunday School Lit- 
erature and Secretary of the Sunday 
School Union and Tract Society of the 
ae Episcopal Church, Newark, 


Rurus W. Miter, D.D. 
Secretary and Editor, Sunday School 
Board of the Reformed Church in the 
United States, Philadelphia, Pa, 


A. L. Putiuures, D.D. 

Late General Superintendent, Executive 
Committee of Publications, Depart- 
ment of Sabbath Schools and Young 
People’s Societies of the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States, Rich- 
mond, Va. 

Ira M. Pricz, Pu.D., LL.D. 

Professor of Semitic Languages and 
Literatures, University of Chicago, Chi- 
cago, Ill. 

Epwarp P. St. Jonn, A.M., Pp. M. 
Professor of Pedagogy in the Hartford 
School of Religious Pedagogy, Hart- 
ford, Conn. 

Marion STEVENSON, REv. 

Editor, Sunday School Publications, 
Christian Board of Publications, St. 
Louis, Mo. 

Rospert Perry SHEPHERD, PH.D. 
Educational Secretary, The Cook 
County Sunday School Association, 
Chicago, Ill. , 

Isaac J. VAN Ngzss, D.D. 

Editorial Secretary, Sunday School 
Board of the Southern Baptist Conven- 
tion, Nashville, Tenn. 


LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 


JoHN CotEMAN ApDAms, D.D., Editor of 
the Sunday School Helper. (Univers- 
alist Church) 

R. R. ApamMs, Rev., President, Colorado 
State S. S. Association, Fort Lupton, 
Col. (T'wo-Sessions-a-Day S. 8.) 

WatTer F. Apenry, M.A., D.D., Prin- 
cipal, Lancashire Independent College; 
Lecturer in History of Doctrine, Man- 
chester University, Manchester, Eng- 
land. (Hztra-Biblical Studies; The 
Sabbath) 

Freitix ADLER (Mrs.), New York City. 
(Society for Ethical Culture) 

JoHun L, ALEXANDER, Superintendent Sec- 
ondary Division, International 8. 8. 
Association, (Community Organiza- 
tions for Boys and Garls) 

W. T. AuuAN, Rev., Chairman Ex Officio, 
White Cross Single Standard League 
of America, Jacksonville, Ala. (White 
Cross Single Standard League of Amer- 
ica) 

Apotro AraAvgo, of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society, Madrid, Spain. 
(Religious Education in Spain) 

GEORGE HAMILTON ARCHIBALD, London. 
(The Decentralized S. S.; Easter Con- 
ferences and School of Method; Train- 
ing Institute for S. S. Workers, West- 
hill, Selly Oak) 

Water 8S. ATHEARN, A.M., Professor of 
Religious Education, Drake University, 
Des Moines, Ia. (Contribution of Psy- 
chology and Pedagogy to the Work of 
the S. 8.) 

S. G. Ayres, B.D., Librarian, Garrett 
Biblical Institute, Evanston, Ill. (Bib- 
lical Instruction by Correspondence; 
etc. ) 

Sir RoBpert BADEN-PowELt, K.C.B., Lon- 
don. (Boy Scouts of England) 

-Evetyn E. BaGnatt, Secretary, The Alli- 
ance of Honor, London. (Alliance of 
Honor) 

STEPHEN C. Battyy, London. (Interna- 
tional Bible Reading Association) 


CHARLES SEARS BALDWIN, PH.D., Pro- 


fessor of Rhetoric and English Compo- 


Vi 


sition, Barnard College, Columbia Uni- 
versity. (Moral and Religious Educa- 
tion Through Literature) 

JOSEPHINE L. BALDWIN, Writer of Junior 
Graded Lessons. (Junior Department; 
Memory Work; etc.) 

Wapbe C. Barciay, D.D., Associate Edi- 
tor of Teachers’ Publications, M. EK. 
Church, Cincinnati, Ohio. (Adult De- 
partment; Organized Adult Classes) 

Henry J. Barnes, M.D., Professor of 
Hygiene, Tufts College, Boston, Mass. 
(Hygiene) 

J. WOODBRIDGE BARNES, (Mrs.), Superin- 
tendent of Graded Instruction of the 
M. E. Church, New York City. (Graded 
Unwns of 8. S. Teachers) 

Mary Ciark Barnes, (Mrs.), Yonkers, 
N. Y. (Fireside League) 

S. T. Bartiett, D.D., General Secretary, 
Department of Sunday Schools and 
Young People’s Societies of the Meth- 
odist Church in Canada, Toronto, Can- 
ada. (Methodist Church in Canada) 


FREDERICA BxrArD, Boston, Mass. (Ob- 
servance of Christmas; Use of Pictures 
in the S.8., ete.) 

Lina Berarp, Illustrator and Author. 
(Girl Pioneers of America) 

Paut D. Bercen, D.D. (Moral and Re- 
ligious Education in China) 


Henry Berkowitz, Chancellor of the 
Jewish Chautauqua Society, Philadel- 
phia, Pa. (Jewtsh Chautauqua So- 
ciety ) 

JoHN G. Brrou, Hon. Secretary Pro tem., 
South African S. S. Association, Port 
Elizabeth, South Africa. (S. S. Work 
in South Africa) 

L. J. Brrney, D.D., Dean, Boston Uni- 
versity, School of Theology, Boston, 
Mass. (Evangelism Through Educa- 
tion) 

CuarLes W. BrisHop, B.A., National 
Secretary of the Y. M. C. A. in Canada. 
(Y. M. C. A. in Canada) 

ARTHUR Buack, Hon. Secretary, Liverpool 
Sunday School Union. (Baptist Sun- 
day Schools [Great Britatn] ) 


LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS vii 


CHRISTOPHER R. BLACKALL, D.D., Editor, 
S. S. Periodicals of the American Bap- 
tist Publication Society, Philadelphia, 
Pa. (Denominational Responsibility in 
S. S. Work; Edward Eggleston; etc.) 

E. H. Bricureipt, Chautauqua, N. Y. 
(Chautauqua Institution) 

Carry Bonner, Rev., Secretary, 8S. S. 
Union, London, E. C. (Sunday Schools 
in England before Robert Ratkes; Sun- 
day Schools in England from Robert 
Ratkes onward ; etc.) 

Wiuit1am H. Boocock, Rev., Director, 
Religious Education, First Presbyterian 
Church, Buffalo, N. Y. (Church 
School; Director of Religious Educa- 
tion) 

Cuar.eEs B. Booty, New York City. (S. 
S. Work in the Prisons) 

Joun W. Boswetu, D.D., Nashville, 
Tenn. (M. EF. Church, South) 

C. A. Bourne, Lr. Cox., Secretary, White 
Cross League, London. (White Cross 
League) 

Rosert G. Bovitie, Rev., National 
Director, Daily Vacation Bible School 

_ Association, New York City. (Daily 
Vacation Bible School Association) 

BreecHer S. BowpisH, Secretary, New 
Jersey Audubon Society. (Audubon 
Societies and their Work) 

Sypnry W. Bowser, B.A., Principal, Not- 
tingham Baptist College, Nottingham, 
England. (Relation of the Church to 
the Religious Life of the Child) 

JOHN CLEMENTS Borers, M.A. (Colum- 
bia), New York City. (Play as a Fac- 
tor in Religious Education) 

Wittiam = BrapFietp, B.A., Warden, 
Wesley Deaconess Institution. (Dea- 
coness Institutions Offering Training 
for S. S. Work) 

Lester BrapNER, PH.D., Director, Gen- 
eral Board of Religious Education, 
Protestant Episcopal Church, New York 
City. (Confirmation; Children’s Wor- 
ship) 

H. S. Bravcuer, Secretary, Playground 
and Recreation Association of America, 
New York City. (Playground and 
Recreation Association of America) 

Rosert H. BrenneckeE, Rev., Secretary, 
Religious Education Board, Emaus, Pa. 
(Moravian Church in the United 
States) 


ALEXANDER Brown, M.A., 
Scotland. 
Scotland ) | 

CHarLes R, Brown, D.D., Dean, Yale 
School of Religion, Yale University, 
New Haven, Conn. (Christ as a 
Teacher) 

Frank L. Brown, Field Secretary, 
World’s 8S. 8S. Association, Brooklyn, 
N.Y. (World’s S. 8. Association) 

Marranna C. Brown, Author “Sunday 
School Movements in America.” 
(Backward Children; Desk Talks; etc.) 

Dan B. Brummit, D.D., Editor, Ep- 
worth Herald, Chicago, Ill. (Hpworth 
League) 

Mary Foster Bryner, (Mrs.), Superin- 
tendent Elementary Division, Interna- 
tional 8. 8. Association. (Cradle Roll) 

A. J. Bucusr, D.D., Editor “Haus und 
Herd,” Cincinnati, Ohio. (Religious 
Education in Switzerland) 

A. R. Bucxianp, M.A., Secretary, Reli- 
gious Tract Society, London. (Reli- 
gious Tract Socrety) 

Cuartes D. Buta, D.D., Superintend- 
ent, Wesley Bible Class Department, M. 
EK. Church, South, Nashville, Tenn. 
(Wesley Bible Classes) ) 

RicHarp BureeEs, General Secretary, 
India Sunday School Union, Jubbul- 
pore, India. (India S. 8. Union) 

Isaac B. Burcsss, General Secretary, 
New Jersey 8. S. Association, Newark, 
N.J. (Art of Questioning; etc.) 

JAMES WILLIAMS ButcHeEr, REv., Secre- 
tary, Wesleyan Methodist 8. 8. Depart- 
ment, London. (Decision Day; Wes- 
leyan Methodist S. S. Department; 
etc.) 

Ernest 8S. Burier, Treasurer, American 
Baptist Foreign Mission Society, 
Boston, Mass. (S. S. Finances) 

Ernest W. ByssHe, Rev., Superintend- 
ent, Mission Francaise Eglise Métho- 
diste Episcopale, Grenoble, France. 
(Moral Teaching wn the Public Schools 
in France; Sunday School in France; 
etc.) 

DaniEL 8, CaLpERwoop, M.A., F.E.IS., 
Master of Method, Edinburgh Provin- 
cial Training College. (Religious In- 
struction of Youth iw the Church of 
Scotland) 


Glasgow, 
(Umted Free Church of 


Vili 


W. Hume CAMPBELL, M.A., Principal, St. 
Christopher’s College, Blackheath. (St. 
Christopher’s College) 

Henry K. Carrott, LL.D., Associate 
Secretary, Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America, Wash- 
ington, D. C. (Statistical Tables) 

Henry Carter, Rev., Temperance Secre- 
tary, Wesleyan Methodist Church, Lon- 
don. (Temperance Teaching tn the 
Sunday School [Great Britain] ) 

S. C. CHALLENGER, Rev., Secretary, S. 8. 
Department United Methodist Church 
England. (United Methodist Church) 

WiitiAmM E. CHAtmeErs, General Secre- 
tary, Baptist Young People’s Union of 
America, Philadelphia, Pa. (Baptist 
Young People’s Union) 

Grorce D. CHAMBERLAIN, Chairman, Ex- 
ecutive Council, Federated Boys’ Clubs, 
Boston, Mass. (Federated Boys’ Clubs) 

Groraia Lovis—E CHAMBERLIN, Chicago, 
Ill. (American Institute of Sacred 
Literature; Constructive Bible Studves) 

Witi14sM G. CHAMBERLIN, Superintend- 
ent, On Timer’s Tribe, Denver, Col. 
(On Timer’s Tribe) 

Epwin B. Cuappext, A.B., D.D., 8. S. 
Editor of the M. E. Church, South. 
(Benevolences in the S. 8S.; Child Con- 
version; etc.) 

Francis E. Cuarx, D.D., LU.D., Presi- 
dent, World’s Christian Endeavor 
Union, and Editor Christian Endeavor 
World, Boston, Mass. (Young People’s 
Society of Christian Endeavor ) 

JosEPH CxrARK, D.D., Superintendent, 
New York State S. S. Association, 
Albany, N. Y¥. (Samuel Wellman 
Clark; etc.) 

JosEPH W. CocHran, D.D., Secretary, 
Board of Education of the Presbyterian 
Church in the U. 8S. A., Philadelphia, 
Pa. (Vocation Day in the S. 8.) 

GrorcE A. Cor, PH.D., LL.D., Skinner 
and McAlpine Professor of Practical 
Theology, Union Theological Seminary, 
New York City. (Union School of Re- 
ligion) 

H. T. J. Coteman, Pu.D., Professor of 
Education, University of Toronto. 
(Plan of the Lesson) 

Grace W. Conant, Boston, Mass. (Hymn 
ead and Composers; Music in the 


LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 


H. C. Cootzry, Pu.D., Natchitoches, La. 
(Psychology of Sunday) 

MeEtAncTHON Coover, D.D., Professor, 
Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettys- 
burg, Pa. (Liturgics of the S. 8.) 

Henry F. Corr, A/M., D.D., General 
Secretary, Religious Education Asso- 
ciation, Chicago, Ill. (Middle Period 
of S. S. History; Organization of the 
es i Religious Education Association, 
etc. 

Laura Exta Cragin, Author “Kinder- 
garten Stories.” (Stories and Story- 
Telling; etc.) 

C. F. Hitt CratHern, Rev., Pastor, Park 
Congregational Church, Worcester, 
Mass. (Children’s Church) 

A. C. Crews, D.D., Editor, 8. S. Publica- 
tions Methodist Church, Toronto, 
Canada. (John Potts) 

OLIvE CrossBy, New York City. (Society 
of Sanitary and Moral Prophylazts) 
JOSEPH CuLSHAW, REv., Editor “Indian 
Witness,’ Darjeeling, India. (Moral 
and Religious Education of Children 

among the Hindus) 

H. H. Cummines, Pror., and Epwin G. 
Woottey, Jr. (Mormons) 

JAMES CUNNINGHAM, J.P., Glasgow, 
Scotland. (Thomas Chalmers; Sab- 
bath Schools in Scotland; etc.) 

JoHN K. Curtis, B.A., Field Secretary 
of the Methodist Church. Department 
of 8. 8. and Young People’s Societies, 
Sackville, N. B. (Sunday School Work 
in Newfoundland) 

Frances WELD DANIELSON, Associate 
Editor, The Congregational S. 8. and 


Publishing Society, Boston, Mass. 
(Beginners’ Department; etc.) 
WinirreD E. Davey, London. (Special 


Work Among Girls [England] ) 

Witu1am J. Davipson, D.D., Professor, 
Sacred Rhetoric, Garrett Biblical In- 
stitute, Evanston, Ill. (Religious Edu- 
cation in the Harly Church) 

GrorcEe T. B. Davis, Author of “Korea 
for Christ,” London. (Pocket Testa- 
ment League) 

Jesse B. Davis, A.M., Principal, Central 
High School, Grand Rapids, Mich. 
(Training for Leadership) 

Henry Dawson, M.A., Secretary, Church 
of England 8. 8S. Institute; London. 
(Church of England; etc.) 


LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS ix 


P. K. Dayroot, M.A., General Superin- 
tendent, S. S. Board of the Baptist 
Convention of Ontario and Quebec. 
(Baptist Convention in Canada) 


RatpH EH. Dirrenporrer, M.A., B.D., 
S. S. Secretary of the Missionary Edu- 
cation Movement of the United States 
and Canada, New York City. (Mission- 
ary Education in the 8. S.) 

Ernest DopesHun, B.A., 
(Adult School Movement) 

Davip G. Downey, D.D., Book Editor, 
Methodist Episcopal Church, New York 
City. (Rally Day; etc.) 

Patterson Dv Bors, Literary Adviser 
and Editor, Philadelphia, Pa. (Atmos- 
phere in Religious Education) 


W.H. Dunsar, D.D., Chairman, 8. S. Lit- 
erature Committee, General Synod of 
the Lutheran Church, Baltimore, Md. 
(Lutheran Church) 

Davip Dunrorp, Roman Catholic Dio- 
cesan Inspector of Schools, Editor 
“Roman Documents and _ Decrees,” 
Assistant Editor of the “Universe,” 
London, W. C. (Roman Catholic Sun- 
day Schools [Great Britain] ) 

Apert E. Dunnine, D.D., Former 
Editor “The Congregationalist,” Bos- 
ton, Mass. (Marshall Curtiss Hazard) 


J. S. Durum, Superintendent Home and 
Visitation Division, International S. S. 
Association, Chicago, Ill. (Home Vis- 
atation ) 

Epwin L. Earp, Pu.D., Professor of So- 
ciology, Drew Theological Seminary, 
Madison, N. J. (Sunday School and 
Social Conditions) 

FREDERICK C. EIsELEN, Pu.D., D.D., Pro- 
fessor, Semitic Languages, Garrett Bib- 
lical Institute, Evanston, Ill. (Reli- 
gious Education in Old Testament 
Times) 

Harrison 8. Exxiorr, Secretary, Bible 
Study Work, International Committee 
Y. M. C. A., New York City. (College 
Students and the 8S. 8.) 

T. H. Exxison, Rev., Secretary, Moravian 
S. 8S. Association, England. (Moravian 
Church in the United Kingdom) 

Frances V. Emerson, Chairman of Exec- 
utive Committee N. E. Moral Reform 
Society, Boston, Mass. (New England 
Moral Reform Society) 


(Cantab.) 


Hersert F. Evans, Pu.D., Professor, 
Biblical Literature and Religious Edu- 
cation, Grinnell College, Grinnell, 
Towa. (S. S. Architecture) 


Wituram Ewine, D.D., Secretary, Mis- 
slonary Extension Department. Congre- 
gational S. 8. and Publishing Society, 
Boston, Mass. (Children’s Day; De- 
nominational S. S. Missionary Exten- 

Mitton Farrcuinp, A.B., Collaborator, 
U. 8. Bureau of Education; Director of 
Instruction, National Institution for 
Moral Instruction, Baltimore, Md. 
(Visual Instruction in Morals) 


JoHNn T. Farts, D.D., Editor, Presbyte- 
rian Board of Publication and S. S. 
Work, Philadelphia, Pa. (James Rus- 
sell Miller; John Wanamaker ) 


Harry Farmer, President, The Florence 
B. Nicholson Bible Seminary, Calooran, 
Philippine Islands. (8. 8S. Work in the 
Philippine Islands) 


James McNari Farrar, LL.D., Pastor, 
First Reformed Church, Brooklyn, N. 
Y. (Junior Congregation; Preaching 
to Children) 

JoHN A. Fauuxner, D.D., Professor, His- 
torical Theology, Drew Theological 
Seminary, Madison, N. J. (Martin 
Luther) | 

J. Eaton Feasry, Lecturer in Education 
Sheffield University. (Class Manage- 
ment; etc.) 


Emity J. Fert, Graduate Drexel Insti- 
tute Library School. (First Sunday 
Schools; etc.) 


EK. Morris Frreusson, A.M., D.D., Edu- 
cational Superintendent of S. S. Mis- 
sions, Presbyterian Board of Publica- 
tion and S. 8. Work, Philadelphia, Pa. 
(S. S. Conventions; International S. 8S. 
Association, etc.) 

GrorcEe J. Fisuer, M.D., M.P.E., Phys- 
ical Department, International Com- 
mittee Y. M. C. A., New York City. 
(S. 8S. Athletic Leagues) 


GEORGE WALTER Fiske, Professor of Prac- 
tical Theology in Oberlin Theological 
Seminary, Oberlin College, Oberlin, 
Ohio. (Adolescence) 

Witi1am B. FrirzGeraup, Rev., Secre- 

_ tary, Wesley Guild, London. (Young 
People’s Societies [Great Britain] ) 


x LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 


FREDERICK C. Fousom, Past President, 
S. S. Superintendents’ Union of Boston 
and Vicinity, Boston, Mass. (8S. S. 
Superintendents’ Organizations) 

WiLL1AM Byron’ ForsusH, PuH.D., 
Lirt.D., President, American Institute 
of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa. 
(Problem of Training the Boy; Sez 
Education in 8S. 8S.; ete.) 

Eucrenté C. Foster, City Secretary for 
Boys,.i¥.5 Mir C.. cS) Detroit, . Mich, 
(Amusements; Detroit Boys’ Work; 
etc. ) 

BisuHor H. H. Four, D.D., Church of the 
United Brethren in Christ, Dayton, 
Ohio. (Family Worship; Pastoral 
Duty and Opportumty of the S. 8. 
Teacher; etc.) 

Nannist Lee Frayser, A.B., Elementary 
Superintendent for Kentucky §. S. 
Association, Louisville, Ky. (Training 
the Conscience) 

James Fuuron, Secretary, Glasgow, Scot- 
land. (Bible Training Institute) 


THomas W. GatLtoway, PuH.D., Pro- 
fessor Biology, The James Millikin Uni- 
versity, Decatur, Ill. (Hducation of 
the Will; Educational Function of the 
Pe S55 CLC.) 

ALFRED HE. Garvisg, M.A., D.D., Principal, 
New College, Hampstead, London, 
N.W. (How the Teacher Should Know 
the Bible) 

Grorcre S. Gassner, A.M., Rev., Chap- 
lain, Seamen’s Church Institute, Phil- 
adelphia, Pa. (Drexel Biddle Bible 
Classes) 

Hersert Wricot Gates, M.A., D.D., 
Superintendent, Brick Church Insti- 
tute, Rochester, N. Y. (Value of 
Teaching to the Teacher; The Sunday 
School Sesston; etc.) 

Frances M. Giut, New York City. (So- 
cialist Sunday Schools) 

Rosert C. Giiire, M.A., London. (Chil- 
dren and Church Membership) 

GrorceE W. Gitmore, A.M., Associate 
Editor “Homiletic Review,’ New York 
City. (Non-Christian Scriptures) 

Davip Haster Guass, Rev., Pontiac, 
Mich. (Combination Service) 

Frep 8. GoopMAN, Secretary, Bible Study 
Advisory Committee, Y. M. C. A., New 
York City. (Y. M.C, A. and the S, 8.) 


J. R. Gooppasture, Rev., Editor, 8S. S. 
Literature, Cumberland Presbyterian 
Church, Nashville, Tenn. (Cumber- 
land Presbyterian Church) 

F. J. Goutp, Lecturer and Demonstrator, 
London. (Moral Education League) 
I. W. Gowen, D.D., Pastor, Grove Re- 
formed Church, Weehawken, N. J. 

(Reformed Church in America) 

Ernvu Grant, PH.D., Associate Professor 
of Biblical Literature, Smith College, 
Northampton, Mass. (Geography) 

JAMES M. Gray, D.D., Dean, Moody Bib- 
lical Institute, Chicago, Ill. (Synthetic 
Bible Study) 

CORNELIA GREEN, Secretary, The Big 
Sisters, New York City. (The Big 
Sisters) 

GERTRUDE EK. GRIFFITH, National Secre- 
tary, Girls’ Work of the Y. W. C. A., 
New York City. (The Girl) 

WittIAM Howse Grosser, B.Sc., Hon. 
Literary Secretary, 8.8. Union, London, 
EK. C. (British Section of the Lesson 
Committee; Sunday School Union) 

JOHN GuNN, M.A., D.Sc., London. 
(Henry Drummond) 

K. W. Harrenny, 8.T.L., B.D., General 
Secretary, Ontario 8S. S. Association. 
(History of the Associated S. 8S. Work 
in the Dominion of Canada) 

THoomas M. Hamitu, M.A., D.D., Belfast, 
Ireland. (History of Sunday Schools 
in Ireland) 

W. Metvitte Harris, M.A., (Brother- 
hoods in Great Britain; Robert Raikes; 
etc.) 

PascaL Harrower, Rev., Chairman, 8. S. 
Commission of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church. (Christian Year) 

WititiAmM N. HartsHorn, Ex-President, 
International S. 8S. Association, Boston, 
Mass. (S. S. Work Among the Ne- 
groes) 

HuauH HartsHorne, PuH.D., Instructor in 
Religious Education and Principal of 
the Union School of Religion. (Statts- 
tical Methods; S. S. Worship) 

SAMUEL B. Hastert, PH.D., Worcester, 
Mass. (Adaptation of the Bible in Re- 
ligious Hducation) 

Conrad A. Hauser, Rev., Educational 
Superintendent, Reformed Church in 
the U. S. (Reformed Church im the 
US .8s) | : 


LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS xi 


WruiiAM I. Haven, D.D., Corresponding 
Secretary, American Bible Society, New 
York City. (American Bible Socwety) 


S. Q. HeirensterIn, Rev., Editor, 8. S. 
Literature, Christian Publishing Asso- 
ciation, Dayton, O. (The Christian 
Church) 

Oscar C. Hetuine, D.D., Pastor, Uni- 


versity Congregational Church, Chi- 
eago, Ill. (Pastor and the 8S. S.) 


W. E. Henperson, National Secretary, 
The Gideons, Chicago, Dl (The 
Gideons) 

ALEXANDER Henry, D.D.,Secretary, Pres- 
byterian Board of Publication and S. S. 
Work, Philadelphia, Pa. (Presbyterian 
Church ) 

Harry Wane Hicks, Pu.B., (Cornell 
University) General Secretary, Mis- 
sionary Education Movement of the 
United States and Canada, New York 
City. (Misionary Hducation Move- 
ment) 


R. A. Hitz, M. A., General Secretary, 
S. S. Commission of the Church of 
England in Canada, Toronto, Canada. 
(Church of England in Canada) 


Wituram Ernest Hocxine, PuH.D., Pro- 
fessor of Philosophy, Harvard Univer- 
sity, Cambridge, Mass. (Psychology of 
Religion) ; 

Ricuarp M. Hopes, D.D., Lecturer in 
English and Biblical Literature, Exten- 
sion Teaching, Columbia University, 
New York City. (Specialization in 
S. 8S. Teaching ) 

J. G. Hotcrort, General Secretary, 8. 8. 


Committee of Korea, Pyeng Yang, 
Korea. (S. S. Work in Korea) 


A. A. Horne, Miss, General Secretary, 
Y. W. C. A. Great Britain and Ireland, 
London W. (Y. W. C. A. of Great 
Britain and Ireland) 


Herrman H. Horne, Pu.D. (Harv.) Pro- 
fessor of the History of Education and 
the History of Philosophy, New York 
University, New York City. (Fried- 
rich Froebel; History of Ancient Reli- 
gious Education; J. H. Pestaloza.; Re- 
ligious Education and General Educa- 
tion; etc.) 

J. H. Horstmann, Rev., St. Louis, Mo. 
(German Evangelical Synod of North 
America) 


Haroup A. Hosxrne, F.8.1., M.Inst.M. & 
Co. E., F.LS.E., London. (Sunday 
Schools in Rural England) 


Puiutie KE. Howarp, President and Treas- 
urer, Sunday School Times Co., Phil- 
adelphia, Pa. (Henry Clay Trumbull) 


MarsHautu A. Hupson, President, World- 
Wide Baraca-Philathea Union, Syra- 
euse, N. Y. (Baraca-Philathea Bible 
Classes) 


BisHor Epwin H. Hueuss, D.D., LL.D., 
Methodist Episcopal Church, San Fran- 
cisco, Cal. (Dealing with Doubt in the 
S. 8.) 

Emity Hunttey, Author “Graded School 
Problems.” (Present Status and Out- 
look for S. S. Work in Great Britain; 
etc. ) 


JESSE LyMAN Houriput, D.D., Former 
Editor, 8. S. Literature and Secre- 
tary of the S. S. Union and Tract So- 
ciety, of the M. E. Church. (Bible 
Stories for Children; Recruiting the 
S. 8.3 ete.) 

Epwin Taytor IaLtenart, A.B., B.D., 
Professor in the Methodist College and 
Theological School, Tokyo, Japan. 
(Religious Education in Japan) 


ARCHIBALD Jackson, Australian Repre- 
sentative of the International S. S. 
Lesson Committee, Melbourne, Vic- 
toria, Australia. (S. S. Work in Aus- 
tralia) | 


GEORGE JACKSON, B.A., Professor of Pas- 
toral Theology, Didsbury College, Man- 
chester, England. (Paul as a Religious 
Teacher) 

K. A. Jansson, D.D., President of the 
Theological School of the M. E. Church 
in Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden. (Reli- 
gious Instruction of the Children in 
Sweden) 

ANNA Jarvis, Philadelphia, Pa. 
ers’ Day) 

D. H. Jemison, Grand Chaplain, Kappa 
Sigma Pi, Cincinnati, Ohio. (Knights 
of St. Paul) 

Frank JOHNSON, B.A., Editor “Sunday 
School Chronicle,’ London. (British 
Graded Lessons) 

BertHa Jounston, Editorially connected 
with the “Kindergarten Magazine,” 
Brooklyn, N. Y. (Sunday School 
Kindergarten) 


(Moth- 


xii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 


Grace Jones, Instructor in Religious 
Education, Drake University, Des 
Moines, Ia. (Sunday School Lnbrary; 
etc.) 

Marsorige Joy Jones. (Loss in Sunday 
School Attendance) 


BERNT JORGENSEN, Pastor, Bergen, Nor- 
way. (Religious Education in Norway) 


HarvutosH1 KawasuMI, Rev., General 
Secretary, National S. S. Association 
of Japan, Tokyo, Japan. (National 
S. 8. Association of Japan) 


R. W. Ketsry, Member of Faculty, Haver- 
ford College, Haverford, Pa. (S. 8. 
Work among Friends) 


J. J. Ketso, Hsq., Ontario Government 
Director of Children’s Aid Societies, 
Vice-President Canadian Conference of 
Charities and Corrections. (Child Wel- 
fare in Canada) 


T. NicHoLtas Ketynack, M.D., M.R.C.P., 
Editor “The Child,’ London, W. 
(Child Welfare Movement; Eugenics) 


Cuartes F. Kent, Pu.D., Woolsey Pro- 
fessor Biblical Literature, Yale Uni- 
versity, New Haven, Conn. (Bible 
Study in Colleges and Secondary 
Schools; etc.) 


Henry CuurcuiLtt Kine, A.M., D.D., 
LL.D., President of Oberlin College, 
Oberlin, Ohio. (Friendship as a Factor 
in Religious Education) 


Irvine Kine, Pu.D., Assistant Professor 
of Education, State University of lowa, 
Towa City, Ia. (Actwity ...m Reli- 
gious Education; Social Aspects of 
Religious Education) 


Sir JoHN Kirk, J.P., Founder of the 
Ragged School Union, London. (Ragged 
School Union) 


Epwarp Hooxer Knieut, D.D., Dean, 
Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy. 
(Hartford School of Religious Peda- 
gogy) 

ABerT C. Knupson, PH.D., D.D., Pro- 
fessor of Hebrew and Old Testament 
Exegesis, Boston University, School of 
Theology, Boston, Mass. (Modern Bib- 
lical Scholarship and the 8S. 8S.) 


Howarp A. Kramer, Rev., Editor, S. S. 
and Young People’s Literature, Evan- 
gelical Association, Cleveland, Ohio. 
(Evangelical Association) 


Kate E. Lane, B.A., National Secretary, 
City Department Y. W. C. A. of Can- 
ada. (Y. W.C. A. wn Canada) 

Wititram CHauncy Lanepon, A.M., 
Pageant Master, New York City. (Pag- 
eantry ) 

L. C. Larsen, Pastor, Copenhagen, Den- 
mark. (Religious Education in Den- 
mark) 

Marion Lawrance, General Secretary, 
International S. S. Association, Chi- 
cago, Ill. (Place of the S. 8. in the 
Church) 

Witiiam I. LAawrance, Rev., Secretary, 
American Unitarian Association, De- 
partment of Religious Education, 
Boston, Mass. (Unitarian Church ) 


EstHer E. LAwrENcE, Principal, Froebel 
Educational Institute, London. (Froe- 
bel Educational Institute) 

MartHa K. Lawson, Jamaica, Long 
Island, N. Y. (Mizved Classes; etc.) 


Hetty Ler, M.A., National Society, Lon- 
don. (National Soctety for the Promo- 
tion of the Education of the Poor) 


Evucene H. Leuman, M.A., Instructor of 
Post-Biblical Literature, Yale Univer- 
sity, New Haven, Conn. (Religious 
Education Among the Jews) 


W. 3B. Lerten, Stockport, 
(Stockport S. 8.) 

H. A. Lesrer, M.A., Director of the 
Bishop of London’s S. 8. Council, Lon- 
don. (Bishop of London's 8. 8. 
Council ) 

CHARLES SMITH LEwI1s, VERY ReEv., Sun- 
day-school Editor “Living Church,” 
Recording Secretary of the General 
Board of Education. (Protestant Hpis- 
copal Church) 

Epwarp 8S. Lewis, D.D., Assistant Editor, 
S. S. Publications, M. E. Church, Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio. (S. S. Paper; etc.) 

H. Ever Lewis, Rev., London. (V8. 8. 
‘an Wales) | 

Litt1an M. Lewtis, of the U. S. Depart- 
ment of Labor, Children’s Bureau, 
Washington, D.C. (Children’s Bureau) 

Bren B. Linpsey, Judge of the Juvenile 
Court, Denver, Col. (Juventle Court) 

Mitton S. Lirrierierp, D.D., District 


Secretary, Congregational 8. S. and 
Publishing Society, New York City. 


England. 


LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 


(Handwork in the S. S.; Intermediate 
Department) 

P. J. McCormick, Pu.D., Catholic Uni- 
versity of America, Washington, D. C. 
(Holy Name Society; Roman Catholic 
Church in America) 

ELIzABETH McCracken, Editor “Home 
Progress,” Cambridge, Mass. (The 
Child’s Religious Liberty; etc.) 


J. Ramsay MacDonatp, M.P., London. 
(The Father’s Responsibility wm the 
Education of his Children) 

BisHorp WituiAM F. McDowe tt, D.D., 
LL.D., Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Chicago, Ill. (Recruiting the Mimstry 
through the S. 8.) 

FRANKLIN McE.rresH, Pu.D., Superin- 
tendent, Teacher Training, Interna- 
tional 8. 8. Association, Chicago, IIl. 
(City Training School; Installation of 
Officers; etc.) 

CHARLES S. MAcFARLAND, PH.D., Secre- 
tary, Federal Council of the Churches 
of Christ in America, New York City. 
(Federal Council of Churches) 


JoHN T. McFarianp, D.D., LLD., 
Late Editor, S. S. Publications M. E. 
Church, New York City. (Bible Read- 
ing) 

W. P. McGurrz, Editor “Boys’ Life,” 
New York City. (Boy Scouts of Amer- 
ica) 

WiutraM A. McKeever, Professor of 
Child Welfare in the University of 
Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. (Cigarette 
Evil; etc.) 

A. J. McKztway, D.D., Secretary for the 
Southern States, National Child Labor 
Committee, Washington, D. C. (Na- 
tional Child Labor Committee) 

W. Dovatas Macxenziz, D.D., LL.D., 
President, Hartford Theological Sem- 
inary, Hartford, Conn. (Personality 
and Character of the S. S. Teacher) 

James P. McNavueuron, Principal, Bi- 
thynia High School, Bithynia, Turkey. 
(The S. S. in Turkey) 

Rr. Rev. N. McNett, D.D., Archbishop of 
Toronto, Toronto, Canada. (Roman 
Catholic Church in Canada) 

Easert H. Magson, B.Sc., Lecturer on 
Principles and Practice of Teaching, 
Department in Pedagogy, Westminster 
Training College, London. (Religious 


Xili 


Teaching wm Public 
Schools | England | ) 
GrorceE P. Mains, D.D., Publishing 
Agent, Methodist Book Concern, New 
York City. (John Thomas McFar- 

land) 


THISELTON Mark, D.Lirt., B.Sc., Lec- 
turer on Education, University of Man- 
chester, Manchester, England. (Hmo- 
tion wn the Religious Education of the 
Young; Pedagogy) 


IsaBEL Marrs, Secretary, Duty and Dis- 
cipline Movement, London. (Duty and 
Discipline Movement) 


JAMES 8. Martin, D.D., General Superin- 
tendent, National Reform Association, 
Pittsburgh, Pa. (National Reform 
Association ) 

L. J. Mracuam, Superintendent, Loyal 
Movement Department, Standard Pub- 
lishing Co., Cincinnati, Ohio. (Loyal 
Movement) 

Lucia AmeEsS Mrap, Boston, Mass. 
(Principles and Place of Patriotism in 
Religious Education) 


GrorGeE R. Merritt, D.D., Dorchester, 
Mass. (William Newton Hartshorn) 


F. B. Meyer, B.A., Rev., London. (Spir- 
atual Aim of the Teacher) 


Henry H. Meyer, D.D., Editor, S. S. 
Publications M. E. Church, Cincinnati, 
Ohio. (Religious Hducation in Ger- 
many; S. S. Council of Evangelical De- 
nominations; etc.) 

Minna M. Meyer, M.A., Cincinnati, Ohio. 
(Child Welfare in the U. 8.) 


Lucy Riper Meyer, A.M., M.D., Princi- 
pal, Chicago Training School, Chicago, 
Ill. (Religious Training Schools) 

R. J. Muirtzier, D.D., Editor, United 
Presbyterian Board of Publication, 
Pittsburgh, Pa. (United Presbyterian 
Church ) 

THomas C. Morrertt, D.D., Superintend- 
ent, Department of Indian Missions, 
Presbyterian Church, U. 8S. A., New 
York City. (S. S. Among the Indians) 


SakgaAH LovuisE Montcomery, M.A., 
(Columbia), Department of Psychology 
and Philosophy, Woman’s College of the 
City of New York. (Child Psychology) 

SypNEY H. Morean, A.M.I.C.E., Lon- 
don. (Boys’ Life Brigade) 


[ Elementary ] 


XiV 


Wiurrip J. Mouton, M.A., (Cantab.), 
Leeds, England. (Crises in Spiritual 
Development) 

WitutiAM Fippran Movtton, M.A., 
(Cantab.), Sheffield, England. (Unt- 
versity Hatension Lectures for S. 8. 
Teachers) 

WiiiiamM J. Mutcu, PuH.D., Professor in 
Philosophy and Education, Ripon Col- 

lege, Ripon, Wis. (Religious Day 
School; Rural Sunday Schools; etc.) 

Mary A. L. NrEruson, President, G. F. S. 
in America, Philadelphia, Pa. (Girls’ 
Friendly Society in America) 

Sir Witu1AmM RoBertson Nicoiu, M.A., 
D.D., D.Lirr., Editor “The British 
Weekly,” London. (League of Worship- 
ping Children) 

A. E. Ospornz, New York City. (Stereo- 
scope) 

AvuRELIO PatmierI, D.D., Cambridge, 
Mass. (Greek Orthodox Church) 


Grace E. J. Parker, New York City. 
(The Camp Fire Girls) 

Ropert Parr, Director, National Society 
for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 
London. (National Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Children) 


Lewis Bayes Paton, PuH.D., D.D., Pro- 
fessor of Old Testament Exegesis and 
Criticism, Hartford Theological Semi- 
nary, Hartford, Conn. (Significance of 
the Bible in Religious Education) 

Frep Lewis Patrer, A.M., Professor, 
English Literature, Pennsylvania State 
College. (The Child’s Imagination; 
The Place of Biography in Religious 
Education; etc.) 

WILLIAM B. Patterson, Executive Secre- 
tary, Commission of Social Service, 
Philadelphia, Pa. (Brotherhood Move- 
ment; Men and Religion Forward Move- 
ment ) 

WittramM C. Prarcr, Superintendent, 
Adult Department, International S. 8. 


Association, Chicago, Ill. (8S. SV. 
Parades) 
A. L. Putters, D.D., Late General 


Superintendent, Executive Committee 
of Publications, Department of 8.S.and 
Young People’s Societies of the Presby- 
terian Church in the U. S., Richmond, 
Va. (Cost of the S, S.; S, 8, Liter- 
ature; etc.) 


LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 


FrepDERIC Piatt, M.A., B.D., Tutor in 
Systematic and Pastoral Theology, 
Handsworth Theological College, Bir- 
mingham, England. (Repetition im 
Teaching) 


Perry HE. Powerit, PH.D., Founder and 
Supreme Merlin, Knights of the Holy 
Grail, Indianapolis, Ind. (Knights a 
the Holy Grail) 


Ira M. Prict, PxH.D., LL.D., Professor 
of Semitic Languages and Literatures, 
University of Chicago, Chicago, IIL.- 
(History of the International Graded 
Lessons ; etc.) 


Epwin Witsur Ricz, D.D., Editor, 
American 8. 8. Union, Philadelphia, 
Pa. (American S. S. Union; etc.) 


Norman E. RicHarpson, Pu.D., Pro- 
fessor, Religious Psychology and Peda- 
gogy, Boston University, School of 
Theology, Boston, Mass. (Religious 
Pedagogy im Colleges and Theological 
Seminaries; etc.) 


D. L. Ritcuis, Principal, Congregational 
College, Nottingham, England. (Schools 
of Religious Pedagogy) 


JoHN H. Ritson, M.A., British and For- 
eign Bible Society, London. (British 
and Foreign Bible Society) 


RicHArD Roserts, M.A., London. (Pres- 
byterian Church in England; Teacher 
Traiming in England) 

J. C. Ropertson, M.A., B.D., General 
Secretary, Sabbath Schools and Young 
People’s Societies, Presbyterian Church 
in Canada, Toronto, Canada. (Presby- 
terian Church in Canada) 


A. T. Roprnson, A.M., Author of “Why 
They Fail,” Ocean Park, Cal. (Indus- 
trial Guild of the Great Commission) 


Epe@ar M. Roxsinson, Secretary, Boys’ 
Work, International Committee of Y.M. 
C. A., New York City. (The Older 


Boy) 


WILLIAM WALKER ROCKWELL, Lic. 
THEOL., Pu.D., Assistant Professor of 
Church History, Union Theological 
Seminary, New York City. (The Ref- 
ormation ) 

A. J. Rowxianp, D.D., Secretary, Amer- 
ican Baptist Publication Society, Phil- 
adelphia, Pa. (Christopher Rubey 
Blackall) | 


LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS XV 


JoHN W. Russety, M.A., New York City. 
(Authority in the S. 8.; Big Brother 
Movement; etc.) 

JouN R. Samper, D.D., LL.D., Professor, 
Old Testament Interpretation, Southern 

‘Baptist Theological Seminary, Louis- 
ville, Ky. (Lesson Commitee; Um- 
form Lesson System; etc.) 

FRANK SANDERS, PH.D., President, Wash- 
burn College, Topeka, Kas. (Standards 
of Biblical Knowledge in the S. 8.) 


THEODORE EK. Scumavux, D.D., Editor, 
Lutheran 8. 8S. Series, Lebanon, Pa. 
(Lutheran Graded System) 

FrEDERIC ScHorr, (Mrs.), President, Na- 
tional Congress of Mothers and Parent- 
Teacher Association, Philadelphia, Pa. 
(National Congress of Mothers) 

H. Epwarp Scort, London. (Society for 
Promoting Christian Knowledge) 

HERBERT Scort, General Secretary, Auck- 
land 8. 8. Union, Auckland, New Zea- 
land. (S.S. Work wn New Zealand) 

CuHarLEs H. Stars, M.A., B.D., A.B., 
Executive Secretary, New York City 
Baptist Mission Society, New York 
City. (S. 8. Work for Foreign Chil- 
dren) 

Frank SeEewatt, D.D., Pastor, 
Church, Washington, D. C. 
Jerusalem Church) 

FranK CHAPMAN SHARP, PH.D., Profes- 
sor of Philosophy, University of Wis- 
consin, Madison, Wis. (Moral Instruc- 
tion in the Public Schools) 

Rosert KENDALL SHAw, (Mrs.), Wor- 
cester, Mass. (Typical S. 8. Inbrary) 

Henry C. SHELDON, D.D., Professor, Sys- 
tematic Theology, Boston University, 
School of Theology, Boston, Mass. 
(Smritual Status of the Child; Theo- 
logical Teaching wn the 8. 8.) 
Ropert Perry SHEPHERD, PH.D., Educa- 
tional Secretary, Cook County 8. 8. As- 
sociation, Chicago, Ill. (Age of His- 
tory; Denominational Basis of Re- 
ligious Hducation ; etc.) 

H. A. SHerman, New York City. (Bible 
Study Union Lessons; Erastus Blakes- 
lee) 

_E. D. S1ucox, Graduate of Congregational 
College of Canada and Editor “The 
Canadian Congregationalist.” (Con- 
gregational Church in Canada) 


New 
(New 


MareareT SiatTtery, Specialist, Child 
Study and Pedagogy, Fitchburg, Mass. 
(City Girl) 

ANDREW SueEpp, PH.D., D.D., LL.D., 
President, Southern University, Greens- 
boro, Ala. (Prayer i the S. 8.) 


ETHEL SMITH, Secretary, Girls’ Friendly 
Society, London. (Girls’ Friendly So- 
ciety in England) 

Sirk WiturAM A. SmitH, Founder of the 
Boys’ Brigade, Glasgow, Scotland. 
(Boys’ Brigade) 

Wittiam WALTER SmitTH, M.A., M.D., 
General Secretary, S. S. Commission 
Protestant Episcopal Church, New 
York City. (S. 8S. Hrhibtts; Use of the 
Stereopticon) 


THEODORE G. Soares, PH.D., D.D., Head 
of the Department of Practical Theol- 
ogy, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. 
(Methods of Teaching in the Bible; 
Value of the Old Testament in Reli- 
gious Education) 


THomas P. Spreppine, Rev., London. 
(Umtarian Church ) 


WILLIAM SPEDDING, ReEv., Secretary, S. 8. 
Union Primitive Methodist Church, 
Leeds, England. (Primitive Methodist 
S. S. Union) 


B. S. SreapweEtz, President, World’s 
Purity Federation, LaCrosse, Wis. 
(World’s Purity Federation) 


Friora V. STEBBINS, (Mrs.), Fitchburg, 
Mass. (The Home Department) 


Cora F. Sropparp, Executive Secretary, 
Scientific Temperance Federation, Bos- 
ton, Mass. (Scientific Temperance 
Teaching in the 8. 8.) 


AnnaA Louise Strona, PH.D., Director of 
Child Welfare Exhibits in St. Louis, 
Montreal, etc., and Director of Exhibits 
for the National Child Welfare Exhibi- 
tion Committee. (Child Welfare Ex- 
hibits) 

JostAH StronG, D.D., LL.D., President, 
American Institute of Social Service, 
New York City. (American Institute 
of Social Service) 


CHarRLES Macautay Srvuart, D.D., 
Lirt.D., LL.D., President, Garrett Bib- 
lical Institute, Evanston, Ill. (S. 8. 
and the Educated Man) 


XV1 


EpuarpDo TAGLIALATELA, PuH.D., S.T.D.,. 
Rome, Italy. (Religious Education in 
Italy) 

LAVINIA TALLMAN, A.B. (Vassar), A.M. 
(Columbia University), Instructor in 
Religious Education, Teachers College, 
New York City. (S. S. Secretary) 


Eva Marcu Tappan, PuH.D., Author, 
Worcester, Mass. (Selection of Books 
for the S. 8S. Inbrary) 


JoHN G. Tasker, D.D., Principal, Hands- 
worth Theological’ College, Birming- 
ham, England. (Thomas Arnold; Oz- 
ford Movement) 


FreDERIC TaAytor, Secretary, Friends’ 
First-Day School Association, London, 
E.C. (Friends’ First-Day School Asso- 
ciation) 

JOHN TELFORD, B.A., Editor, Wesleyan 
Methodist Publications, Dorking, Eng- 
land. (John Wesley; etc.) 


E. G. Tewxssury, Rev., National Secre- 
tary, China S. 8. Union, Shanghai, 
China. (S. S. Work in China) 


Heten L. THomas, Secretary, Educa- 
tional Work of the National Board of 
the Y. W. C. A., New York City. 
(Y.W.C. A. and Bible Study) 


Marion THomas, Writer of Primary 
Graded Lessons, Newark, N. J. (Pri- 
mary Department; etc.) 


I. B. Trout, Rev., Elgin, Ill. 
of the Brethren) 


H. C. Tucker. (S. S. Work in Brazil) 

GEORGE CRESWELL TuRNER, F.L.S., Lon- 
don. (Hz-Scholars Employment Com- 
mittee) 

M. R. Van Creve, Instructor in Physical 
Geography and Botany, Central High 
School, Toledo, Ohio. (National News- 
boys’ Association) 

Isaac J. VAN Nuss, D.D., Editorial Sec- 
retary, S. S. Board, Southern Baptist 
Convention, Nashville, Tenn. (Recog- 
nition of Sin in Religious Education; 
Southern Baptist Convention; etc.) 

JoHN JAMES Virco, Secretary, Central 
Y. M. C. A., London. (London Central 
Y. M. C. A.) 

Harry F. Warp, Rev., Secretary, Meth- 
odist Federation for Social Service, 

Evanston, ll. (Social Service and the 


8. 8.) 


(Church 


LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 


Ernest ©. WaAreEING, S.T.B., Associate 
Editor, “Western Christian Advocate,” 
Cincinnati, Ohio. (Brazil Idea) 


GrorGE T. WEBB, D.D., Associate Editor, 
American Baptist Publication Society, 
Philadelphia, Pa. (Northern Baptist 
Convention ) 

LutHerR A. WEIGLE, PH.D., Dean, Carle- 
ton College, Northfield, Minn. (Hz- 
aminations; Place of Creeds in Reli- 
gious Education; etc.) 

Amos R. Wetts, A.M., Managing Editor, 
Christian Endeavor World, Boston, 
Mass. (Temperance Teaching in the 
S. 8. 

Stpnry A. Weston, PuH.D., Managing 
Editor, Congregational S. S. and Pub- 
lishing Society, Boston, Mass. (Debat- 
ing as a@ Method of Instruction; Men 
Teachers for Boys) 

GayLorD 8. Wurtz, Rev., Secretary and 
Headworker, Union Settlement, New 
York City. (Social Settlement) 


WiLBert W. WHITE, PH.D., D.D., Presi- 
dent, Bible Teachers Training School, 
New York City. (Place of Bible Study 
in the Preparation of the S. S. Teacher) 


W. T. Wuit.ey, M.A., LL.D., F.R., Hist. 
S. London. (Bible as a Source Book of 
Religious Hducation ) 

CHARLES E. WiLBur, Pu.D., D.D., Editor, 
S. S. Periodicals Methodist Protestant 
Church, Pittsburgh, Pa. 
Protestant Church ) 


H. CornELL Witson, Committee on Pub- 
lication New York, New York City. 
(Christian Science Church) 

BENJAMIN SS. WincHeEsterR, D.D., Pro- 
fessor of Religious Education, Yale 
School of Religion, Yale University, 
New Haven, Conn. (Aims of Re- 
ligious Education; Teacher Training ; 
etc.) 

PEARL G. WINCHESTER, A.B., New Haven, 
Conn. (The Home; Horace Mann; etc.) 


ELEANOR DEeNsMORE Woop, M.A., Lec- 
turer in Biblical History, Wellesley Col- 
lege, Wellesley, Mass. (Paul’s Method 
as a Religious Teacher) 

Irvine F. Woop, Pu.D., Professor of Bib- 
lical Literature and Comparative Reli- 
gion, Smith College, Northampton, 
Mass. (Bible in the 8. S8.; Inductive 
Bible Study) | 


(Methodist 


LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS xvii 


Henry Coiuins Wooprvurr, Rev., Presi- PaArtry E, Zartmann, D.D., Secretary, 
dent, Foreign S. 8. Association, New Extension Department, Moody Bible 
York City. (Foreign S. 8. Association) Institute of Chicago, Chicago, III. 

Hersert Brook WorxMAN, M.A., (Dwight Lyman Moody; Moody Bible 
D.Litt., Principal, Westminster Train- Institute) 
ing College, London. (Religious Traine Samuret M. Zwemer, D.D., Editor “The 
ing in Public (Elementary) Schools Moslem World,” Cairo, Egypt. (Reli- 
[England] ) gious Education Among Mohammedans) 


CLASSIFIED LIST OF SUBJECTS 


1. THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 


5. ALLIED AGENCIES 


AND AS- 


2. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDU- SOCIATIONS 
CATION 6. APPENDIX: 
3. PSYCHOLOGY AND PEDAGOGY Statistics 


4. ORGANIZATION 


THE SUNDAY SCHOOL: 
Activity and its Place in Religious Edu- 
cation 
Adult Department 
Adult School Movement (Great Brit- 
ain ) 
Adults, Elective Courses for 
Advertising the Sunday School 
Agoga and Amoma Bible Classes 
Amusements and the Sunday School 
Architecture, Sunday School 
Athletic Leagues, Sunday School 
Australia, Sunday School Work in 
Authority in the Sunday School 
Backward Children, Promotion of 
Badges and their Purpose 
Banners, Use of 
Baptist Convention, Northern 
Baptist Convention, Southern 
Baraca-Philathea Bible Classes 
Beginners’ Department 
Bell, Use of the 
Benevolences in the Sunday School 
Bible Reading Association, International 
Bible Stories for Children 
Bible Study in Colleges and Secondary 
Schools 
Bible Study Union Lessons 
Blackboard 
Boy, The City 
Boy, The Older 
Boy, The Problem of Training the 
Boys, Men Teachers for 
Boys, Country 
Brazil Idea 
Brethren, Church of the 
Cabinet, Sunday School 
Camps, Church 
Canada, History of the Associated Sun- 
day School Work in the Domin- 
ion of 
Baptist Convention in 
“ Church of England in 
“ Congregational Church in 
“ Methodist Church in 


6 


XViii 


Teachers’ Reference Library 
Typical Sunday School Libeaan ete. 


Canada, Presbyterian Church in 
“Roman Catholic Church in 

Catechetical Instruction 

Child Conversion 

Child, Spiritual Status of the 

Children and Church Membership 

Children’s Church, The 

Children’s Day 

Christian Church 

Christian Science Church 

Christmas, Observance of 

Church, Place of Sunday School in the 

Cigarette Evil, The 

Class Management 

Class Names 

Class Pins 

College Students 
School 

Combination Service 

Committee on Religious Education 

Confirmation 

Congregational Church 

Constitution of the Sunday School 

Conventions, Sunday School 

Cradle Roll 

Cumberland Presbyterian Church 

Curriculum for Religious Instruction 

Dame Schools in Scotland 

Decentralized Sunday School 

Decision Day 

Democracy in the Sunday School 

Denominational Basis of Religious Edu- 
cation 

Denominational Responsibility in Sun- 
day School Work 

Denominational Sunday School Mis- 
sionary Extension 

Departmental Graded Lessons 

Desk Talks 

Diplomas 

Disciples of Christ 

Discipline 

Doubt, Dealing with, in the Sunday 
School 

Drexel Biddle Bible Classes 


and the Sunday 





CLASSIFIED LIST OF SUBJECTS. xix 


Easter, Observance of 
England—See Great Britain 
Ethical Culture, Society for 
Eugenics 
Evangelical Association 
Evangelism through Education 
Examinations 
Exhibits, Sunday School 
Ex-Scholars Employment Committee 
Extra-Biblical Studies 
Festivals, Sunday School 
Finances, Sunday School 
First Sunday Schools 
Flags of the Sunday School 
Foreign Children, Sunday School Work 
for 
France, Sunday School in 
Friends, Sunday School Work among 
Geography 
German Evangelical Synod of North 
America 
Girl, The 
Girl, The City 
Girl, The Country 
Graded Lessons, British 
Graded Lessons, International, History 
of the 
Graded Unions of 8. S. Teachers 
Grading: Difficulties in Relation to 
Graduation and Graduate Courses 
Great Britain, Present Status and Out- 
look for Sunday School Work in 
Baptist Sunday Schools 
Church of England 
Congregational Church 
Friends First-Day School Association 
Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) 
Presbyterian Church 
Primitive Methodist Sunday School 
Union 
Roman Catholic Sunday Schools 
Unitarian Church 
United Methodist Church 
Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School 
Department 
Greek Orthodox Church 
Gymnasiums, Church 
Handwork in the Sunday School 
Historian of the Sunday School 
Home, The, as an Agency in Religious 
Education 
Home Daily Bible Readings 
Home Department 
Home Visitation 
Hygiene 
Hymn Writers and Composers of Sun- 
day School Music 


Illustration 

Indians, Sunday Schools among the 

Industrial Guild of the Great Commis- 
sion 

Intensive Sunday School Work 

Intermediate Department 

Ireland, History of Sunday Schools in 

Jews, Religious Education among the 

Junior Congregation 

Junior Department 

Kindergarten, Sunday School 

Leadership, Training for 

League of Worshipping Children 

Lesson Committee 

Lesson Committee, British Section of 
the 

Librarian, Sunday School 

Library, Sunday School 

Literature, Sunday School 

Liturgics of the Sunday School 

Loss in Sunday School Attendance, 
Causes of 

Loyal Movement, The 

Lutheran Church 

Memory Work 

Method, Schools of 

Methodist Episcopal Church 

Methodist Episcopal Church, South 

Methodist Protestant Church 

Ministry, Recruiting the, in the Sunday 
School 

Missionary Education in the Sunday 
School 

Missionary Education Movement 


‘Mixed Classes 


Modernist Sunday School in Holland 

Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) in 
the United States 

Mormons, or ‘Church of Jesus Christ of 
Latter-Day Saints’ 

Mother’s Day 

Mottoes, Sunday School 

Moving Pictures in the Sunday School 

Music 

Music in the Primary and Beginners’ 
Departments 

Negroes, Sunday School Work among 

New Jerusalem Church 

New Pupils, Reception and Assignment 
of 

New Year’s Day, Observance of 

Newfoundland, Sunday School Work in 

Non-Christian Scriptures 

Object Teaching 

Officers, Installation of 

Organization, Sunday School 

Organized Adult Classes 


CLASSIFIED LIST OF SUBJECTS 


Organized Class Movement 
Parades, Sunday School 
Parents’ Classes 
Pastor and the Sunday School 
Patriotism, Methods of Teaching, in the 
Sunday School 
Peace Movement 
Prayer in the Sunday School 
Preaching to Children 
Presbyterian Church in the U.S. A. 
Presbyterian Church in the U. S. 
(Southern ) 
Primary Department 
Prisons, Sunday School Work in the 
Prizes and Rewards 
Protestant Episcopal Church 
Publicity, Methods of 
Raikes, Robert. 
Ragged School Union (England) 
Rally Day 
Recognition Day 
Recreation and the Sunday School 
Recruiting the Sunday School, Methods 
of 
Reformed Church in America 
Reformed Church in the U. S. 
Registration, Systems of 
Reserve Teachers, Training of 
Reverence in the Sunday School 
Roman Catholic Church in America 
Rural England, Sunday Schools in 
Rural Sunday Schools 
Russia—See Greek Orthodox Church 
St. Christopher’s College, Blackheath 
Scotland: Religious Instruction of 
Youth in the Church of 
“ Sabbath Schools in 
“ United Free Church of 
Secretary, Sunday School 
Senior Department 
Sex Education in Sunday School 
Small Sunday School, The 
Social Aspects of Religious and Moral 
Education 
Social Service and the Sunday School 
Socialist Sunday Schools 
Specialization in Sunday School Teach- 


ing 

Standards, Sunday School 

Statistical Methods 

Stereopticons, Use of the 

Stereoscope 

Stockport Sunday School 

Strangers in the Sunday School, Re- 
ception of 

Sunday School and Social Conditions 

Sunday School and the Educated Man 


Sunday School as a Church Service 

Sunday School, Cost of the 

Sunday School Paper 

Sunday School Session 

Sunday Schools in England before 
Robert Raikes 

Sunday Schools in England from Rob- 
ert Raikes onward 

Superintendent 

Superintendent, Paid 

Supplemental Lessons 

Teacher, Spiritual Aim of the 

Teacher, Sunday School. 

Teacher, Sunday School, Pastoral Duty 
and Opportunity of the 

Teacher, Sunday School, Personality 
and Character of the 

Teacher Training in America 

Teacher Training in England 

Teachers’ Meetings 

Teachers, Paid 

Teachers, Young People as 

Teaching, Value of, to the Teacher 

Temperance Teaching in the Sunday 
School 

Thanksgiving Day, Observance of 

Transients in Sunday School Attend- 
ance 

Treasurer, Sunday School 

Uniform Lesson System 

Union School of Religion 

Union Sunday Schools 

Unitarian Church 

United Brethren Church 

United Presbyterian Church of North 
America 

United States, Present Status and Out- 
look for Sunday School Work in 
the 

Universalist Church 

Vocational Instruction 

Wales, Sunday School Work in 

Wesley Bible Classes 

World’s Purity Federation 

Worship in the Sunday School 


MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: 


American Institute of Sacred Litera- 
ture 

Atmosphere in Religious Education 

Bible, Adaptation of the, in Religious 
Education 

Bible as a Source Book of Religious 
Education 

Bible, How the Teacher Should Know 
the 

Bible in the Sunday School 


CLASSIFIED LIST OF SUBJECTS XXxi 


Bible Study, Place of, in the Prepara- 
tion of the Sunday School Teacher 

Bible Teachers’ Training School (New 
York City) 

Bible Training Institute (Glasgow) 

Bible, Use of the, in the Devotional Life 
of the Child 

Biblical Instruction by Correspondence 

Biblical Scholarship, Modern, and the 
Sunday School 

Books for the Sunday School Library 

Chicago Training School 

Child’s Communion 

Child’s Religious Liberty 

China, Moral and Religious Education 
in 

Christian Year 

Church, Relation of the, to the Reli- 
gious Life of the Child 

Church School 

City Training School 

Conscience, Training the 

Constructive Bible Studies 

Creeds, Place of, in Religious Educa- 
tion 

Crises in Spiritual Development 

Denmark, Religious Education in 

Director of Religious Education 

oo, Conferences and School of Meth- 
0 

Education in Old Testament Times 

Educational Agencies of the Church 

Educational Function of the Sunday 
School 

Emotion in the Religious Education 

Emotions, Training the 

Father’s Responsibility in the Educa- 
tion of His Children | 

France, Moral Teaching in the Public 
Schools in 

Friendship as a Factor in Religious 
Education 

Germany, Religious Education in 

Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy 

‘Hindus, Moral and Religious Education 
of Children among the 

Inductive Bible Study 

Italy, Religious Education in 

Japan, Religious Education in 

Literature, Moral and Religious Educa- 

tion through 

Mohammedans, 
amon 

‘Moody Bible Institute of Chicago 

‘Moral and Religious Education, Tests 
of Efficiency in 

Moral Practice 


Religious Education 


Motives, The Appeal to, in Religious 
Education 

Nature Study in the Sunday School 

New Haven Religious Education Feder- 
ation 

New Testament, Value of the, in Reli- 
gious Education 

Norway: Religious Education of Youth 
in the State and Church 

Old Testament, Value of the, in Reli- 

— gious Education 

Oxford Movement, The 

Pageantry 

Paul as a Religious Teacher 

Pictures, Use of, in Religious Education 

Public (Elementary) Schools (Eng- 
land), Religious Teaching in the 

Public Schools (United States), Moral 
Instruction in the 

Reformation, The, and Religious Edu- 
cation 

Religion, The Child’s 

Religion, Psychology of 

Religious Day School 

Religious Education, Aims of 

Religious Education, Ancient, History 
of 

Religious Education and General Edu- 
cation 

Religious Education in the Early 
Church 

Religious Pedagogy in Colleges and 
Theological Seminaries, 

Sabbath, The, as a Day of Rest and 
Worship 

Schools of Religious Pedagogy (Great 
Britain) 

Sin, Recognition of, in Religious Edu- 
cation 

Spain, Religious Education in 

Standards of Biblical Knowledge in the 
Sunday School 

Sunday, Psychology of 

Sweden, Religious Instruction of the 
Children in 

Switzerland, Religious Education in 

Synthetic Bible Study 

Teaching in the Bible, Methods of __ 

Theological Teaching in the Sunday 
School 

Thrift as a Factor in Character De- 
velopment 

Training Institute for Sunday School 
Workers, Westhill, Selly Oak 

University Extension Lectures for Sun- 
day School Teachers 

Visual Instruction in Morals 


Xxil 


Worship, Children’s 
Worship, Family 


PSYCHOLOGY AND PEDAGOGY: 


Adolescence and its Significance 

Application of Religious Teaching 

Attention 

Attention, How to Secure and Hold 

Biography and the Age at which it 
Appeals to the Pupil 

Biography, Place of, in Religious Edu- 
cation 

Children, Falsehoods of 

Children, Ignorance of 

Children, Types of 

Christ as a Teacher 

Contact, Point of 

Debating as a Method of Instruction 

Dramatization, Use of, in Teaching 

History and the Age of its Strongest 
Appeal 

Imagination, The Child’s Power of 

Imitation, Place of, in Religious Educa- 
tion 

Instinct, Nature and Value of 

Interest and Education 

Lesson, Plan of the 

Lesson Preparation 

Lesson Previews 

Pedagogy 

Personality of the Child 

Play as a Factor in Religious Education 

Psychology and Pedagogy, Contribution 
of, to the Work of the Sunday 
School 

Psychology, Child 

Questioning, Art of 

Reading the Lesson 

Repetition in Teaching 

Restlessness of Pupils 

-Review and How to Conduct it 

Stories and Story-Telling 

Suggestion, The Function of, in Reli- 
gious Education 

Teaching, Laws of 

Will, Education of the 

Wonder, Age of, in Childhood 


ORGANIZATIONS: 


Baptist Young People’s Union of 
America 

Bible Society, American 

Bible Society, British and Foreign 

Bishop of London’s Sunday School 
Council 

Brotherhood Movement 

Brotherhoods in Great Britain 


CLASSIFIED LIST OF SUBJECTS 


Daily Vacation Bible School Associa- 
tion 

Directors of Religious Education, Asso- 
ciation of 

Duty and Discipline Movement 

Edinburgh Gratis Sabbath School 
Society 

Kditorial Association, Sunday School 

Epworth League 

Federal Council of the Churches of 
Christ in America 


_ First-Day or Sunday School Society 


Foreign Sunday School Association 

Gideons, The 

Girls’ Friendly Society in America 

Girls’ Friendly Society in England 

Guilds for Young People, Anglican 

Holy Name Society 

International Sunday School Associa- 
tion 

Luther League of America 

Men and Religion Forward Movement 

National Society for the Promotion of 
the Education of the Poor in the 
Principles of the Established 
Church 

On Timer’s Tribe 

Religious Education Association 

Society for Promoting © Christian 
Knowledge 

Society (in Scotland) for Propagating 
Christian Knowledge 

State and Provincial Sunday School 
Associations 

Sunday and Adult School Union, Phil- 
adelphia . 

Sunday School Council of Evangelical 
Denominations 

Sunday School Union, American 

Sunday School Union, London 

Superintendents’ Organizations 

Tract Society, American 

Tract Society, Religious 

World’s Sunday School Association 

Young People’s Societies (Great Brit- 
ain) 

Young People’s Society of Christian 
Endeavor 


ALLIED AGENCIES AND ASSOCIA- 
TIONS: 


Alliance of Honor 

American Institute of Social Service 
Audubon Societies and Their Work 
Big Brother Movement 

Big Sisters 

Boy Scout Movement in France 


CLASSIFIED LIST OF SUBJECTS XXili 


Boy Scouts of America 

Boy Scouts of England 

Boys and Girls, Community Organiza- 
tions for | 

Boys’ Brigade 

Boys’ Life Brigade 

Camp Fire Girls 

Chautauqua Institution 

Chautauqua Society, Jewish 

Child Welfare Exhibits 

Child Welfare in Canada 

Child Welfare in the United States 

Child Welfare Movement 

Children’s Bureau 

Cruelty to Children, The National So- 
ciety for the Prevention of 

Deaconess Institutions Offering Train- 
ing for Sunday School Work 

Detroit Boys’ Work 

Federated Boys’ Clubs 

Federation for Child Study 

Fireside League 

Froebel Educational Institute 

Froebel Society 

Girl Pioneers of America 

Girls (England), Special Work among 

Juvenile Court 

Knights of St. Paul 

Knights of the Holy Grail 

Moral Education League 


Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associa- 
tion, National Congress of 

National Child Labor Committee 

National Reform Association 

New England Moral Reform Society 

Newsboys’ Association, National 

Orphanages in Great Britain 

Playground and Recreation Association 
of America 

Pocket Testament League 

Religious Training Schools 

Social Settlement 

Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophy- 
laxis 

Story Tellers’ League 

White Cross League 

White Cross Single Standard League of 
America 

Young Men’s Christian Association and 
the Sunday School 

Young Men’s Christian Association in 
Canada 


‘Young Men’s Christian Association, 


London Central 

Young Women’s Christian Association 
and Bible Study 

Young Women’s Christian Association 
of Canada 

Young Women’s Christian Association 
of Great Britain and Ireland 






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THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS 
AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


VOLUME I 


ACTIVITY AND ITS PLACE IN RE- 
LIGIOUS EDUCATION.—The learning 
process, according to current educational 
theory, is always conditioned by an active 
attitude in the learner. Both the psy- 
chologist and the educator have abandoned 
the old view that the physical and mental 
organism of the child is ever merely iwm- 
pressed by incoming stimuli. Impressions 
from the outer world are actively appro- 
priated rather than: just received. This 
view of the relation of the learner to his 
world has profound and far-reaching con- 
sequences for education. It transfers the 
center of interest from the thing to be 
taught to the individual who is to learn. 
He ceases to be regarded as a mere blank 
tablet on which the world writes its im- 
pressions. What that learner is doing or 
is trying to do, or what he may be expected 
to do, determines what and how much he 
will learn. 

The thing to be taught must then be 
recast with reference to the child regarded 
as an active appropriating agent. The 
logically rounded-out subject matter is 
not the beginning of the learning process 
but the culmination of that process in 
which the activity of the child has been 
the vital element. The organized body 
of geographical or historical information, 
for instance, exists for him only after he 
has made it his own by his personal reac- 
tion to it. The organization of the mate- 
rial he must work out in part for himself, 
if it is ever to be significant for him in 
real life. 

This conception of the learner as active 
rather than passive when practically ap- 
plied to educational procedure, emphasizes 
not merely the activity immediately in- 
volved in learning a given fact but also 
the larger necessity of the learner’s hav- 
ing abundant opportunity to use and 
apply the given fact if it is to become a 
real part of his mental equipment. The 
child is conceived of not merely as a 
bundle of impulses but of purposes. Not 
mere activity, or busy work, counts, but 


activity directed toward ends; activity 
guided by motwes. The problem of ef- 
fective teaching is thus in part a problem 
of finding worthy motives and affording 
opportunities to boys and girls to work 
them out for themselves. 

Notwithstanding this excellent theory 
of learning, much of the educational prac- 
tice, in the ordinary school subjects, as 
well as in moral and religious training, 
attempts to impress ready-made material 
upon children and thinks all too little of 
the absolute need that they should work 
for themselves in these directions. 

It is not meant, of course, that children 
must work out absolutely everything for 
themselves but rather that the emphasis 
shall be on this side rather than upon 
continual dictation and impression. If 
they are encouraged to act for themselves, 
to use their active impulses, rather than 
made to suppress them, they gain an atti- 
tude in which they may be given many 
things “ready made” as well as those to 
work out for themselves. 

The need of activity in the learning of 
religious truth is quite as obvious as in 
the learning of arithmetic, science, or lit- 
erature. The values of morals and reli- 
gion are essentially bound up with self- 
expression and with social intercourse. 
They are interpretations of general needs 
which have developed in the larger world 
of men and women who are ever doing 
things, ever striving to work out purposes 
of one kind or another. ‘These moral 
truths, these religious values can be ap- 
preciated by the child only as he finds 
that they interpret his active nature and 
help him in the realization of his own pur- 
poses. They must not only find expres- 
sion in his active life, they must develop 
for him and gain control over him through 
the course of his every day behavior in the 
world of things and of people. They 
must, in a measure, be discovered and or- 
ganized by each person for himself. In 
general, then, the problem of the teacher 
of morals and of religion is so to guide 


Activity in Religious Education 


the active child that the values he seeks 
to teach will have a reasonable chance of 
being discovered and worked out in the 
learner’s own daily life. 

There are many specific phases of the 
application of these general principles. 
In their narrowest sense, they call for 
action in the Sunday-school class rather 
than passive receptivity. This phase is 
now largely developed in all graded 
courses. Most of the lessons for little chil- 
dren provide certain things for them to do 
in connection with the lessons. 

In the Beginners’ classes there is a grow- 
ing use of kindergarten materials to illus- 
trate and dramatize the simple Bible 
stories and moral lessons. There is 
marching, there are games, there are mo- 
tion songs, all designed to give the little 
children not only something to do but 
also something which will serve to impress 
the lesson of the day. A little farther 
along there are notebooks or lesson re- 
minders furnished, in which texts are il- 
luminated with crayons, pictures are cut 
out, pasted, or drawn. For still older 
classes there are notebooks in which 
written answers to the questions about the 
lesson may be entered, or in which blank 
spaces in the lesson story may be “filled 
in,’ maps to be drawn, etc. All these 
and many other phases of pupil-action 
have been worked out in very commend- 
able detail. They satisfy to some extent, 
the pupil’s need of doing something as 
well as sitting and listening. Their gen- 
eral effectiveness in arousing interest and 
in fixing the things which the teacher 
wishes them to learn depends largely on 
the skill and enthusiasm of the teacher. 
They may easily become as dead and 
formal as the older methods were. 

These methods, in theory and often in 
practice, are great improvements on the 
procedure in elementary classes of a few 
years ago. It must be admitted however, 
that the problem of how to secure suit- 
able expressive activity for the Sunday 
school is a most difficult one, and these 
phases of expression are only the very be- 
ginning. Sunday-school pupils of all 
ages should be helped to participate in 
real religious activities outside the walls 
of the Sunday school. Only as the officers 
and teachers realize the need of making 
manifold connections with the life of the 
world, and only as they become skilled in 


2 


Activity in Religious Education 


planning feasible modes of social service 
for the various grades can they hope to 
attain much success in religious training. 
(See Social Aspects of Religious and 
Moral Education; Social Service and the 
Sais 

It is a question, whether it may not do 
more harm than good to arouse the child’s 
religious emotions and to interest him in 
certain ideals of conduct and service, if he 
is not given opportunity to express these 
ideals in some definite way. The tend- 
ency, without expression, is to produce 
a detached religious life of a more or less 
Pharisaical type. 

Here, as always, the parents should ap- 
preciate the need of the child and codper- 
ate with the school. For the young chil- 
dren, the expressional work should be fur- 
nished in the opportunities for helpfulness 
in the home. Christmas and Thanksgiv- 
ing should afford natural means of de- 
veloping a wider interest in others and a 
desire to share with them one’s own bless- 
ings, 

In the Primary Department, temper- 
ance, self-control, and general helpfulness 
in the home, in the school, and on the play- 
ground can be discussed with the children 
and they may often be led to apply their 
lessons in many real ways. The class as 
a whole may plan real services for the sick, 
the needy, and the lonely. Class parties 
are always useful for giving expressions 
to the ideals of kindly courtesy and of fair 
play. In the Junior and Intermediate 
departments the need multiplies for many 
forms of active expression of the moral 
and religious life. The pupils of these 
ages begin to be interested in and to par- 
ticipate in many phases of life outside the 
home. Here there should be large oppor- 
tunities for the development of practical 
religion. 

There is a danger in dealing with all 
the upper classes of the Sunday school, 
especially those of the Senior Department, 
that the idea may prevail among the young 
people that the religious life is confined 
in its expression to certain rather specific 
“religious acts,” such as going to church, © 
or to the Young People’s society, Bible 
reading, prayer, or contribution to mis- 
sionary support. They should be led to 
feel, rather, that all their life should be- 
long to the Lord and that everything they 
do should be done in the spirit of service © 


Adolescence 


to the Master. In accord with this point 
of view, they should learn that their bodies 
are holy, the temples of God, and that 
proper care of them is one form of ex- 
pressing the religious life. They should 
be led to see that the eating of proper food 
in the proper manner, the wearing of serv- 
iceable, modest, and unextravagant clothes, 
the taking of sufficient sleep and exercise, 
the avoiding of stimulants and all sorts 
of personal bad habits, the cultivation of 
a manly or womanly bearing, courtesy, 
kindness, and sincerity in all social rela- 
tions, honesty, and energy in school 
studies and in home duties—that all 
these things are vital and supplemental 
phases of the truly religious life and are 
quite as important in the sight of God 
as church attendance, prayer, or mission- 
ary work. 

One point of general importance needs 
final emphasis. It is this: of themselves 
children will not, to any great extent, 
apply what they learn in school to what 
they do outside of school, unless they have 
plenty of practice in application under 
the supervision of the teacher. This fact 
is gaining increasing recognition in sec- 
ular education. It is just as true of reli- 
gion. There is little value in “storing 
the child’s mind” with religious truths in 
the expectation that as the years go by and 
various opportunities arise he will apply 
them for himself. The point is that the 
connection with conduct, if it is ever to 
be made, must occur largely at the time 
the fact is taught. 

Irvine Kina. 

Sre Morat AND Retiaious EpucaTIon, 
Tests oF EFFICIENCY IN; Motives, Ap- 
PEAL TO, IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 

Reference: 

James, William. Talks to Teachers 

on Psychology. (New York, 1910- 

c1899-1900.) 


ADAPTATION OF BIBLE MATERIAL. 
—Sre Brsitz, ADAPTATION OF THE, IN 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION, 


ADMINISTRATION.—SEz OnRGANIZA- 
TION, S. S.; PEpDacoey. 


ADOLESCENCE AND ITS SIGNIFI- 
CANCE.—A standard eight-volume ency- 
clopedia published twenty years ago does 
not contain the word.adolescence. But in 


Adolescence 


the last two decades religious-social work 
with boys and girls and young people has 
had a very remarkable development, and 
this word has been popularized by the new 
religious pedagogy, as well as by many of 
the leaders in general education. 

In one of its two senses, adolescence is 
simply the technical term for youth. It 
refers to the period of human life between 
childhood and maturity. It also connotes 
the process of developing into manhood or 
womanhood which takes place during these 
critical years. This maturing process is 
primarily concerned with the development 
of the sex function; and the beginning 
of pubescence marks the beginning of 
youth. So radical is this change, it affects 
the entire organism and its relation to the 
world. Therefore adolescence has to do 
with the physical, intellectual, social and 
religious development of young people, 
all of which are very closely related. 

Failure to recognize the critical impor- 
tance of this process, and what it involves, 
accounts for much of the failure of 
churches and Sunday schools in dealing 
with their young people. We have dis- 
covered that the new birth of the soul 
comes most naturally in connection with 
this new birth of body, mind and social 
consciousness, which occurs during ado- 
lescence. Adolescence is, or should be, 
essentially a new birth into a larger life, 
out of the natural selfishness of childhood 
with its narrow sympathies, shallow ex- 
periences and limited knowledge, into the 
full development of the mature life. This 
new birth is life’s supreme crisis. All 
phases of it are vitally important, and all 
essentially religious. Religious leaders 
have come to recognize that the church’s 
responsibility for its young people must 
include consideration for their social 
hungers, their intellectual ideals and phys- 
ical needs as well as their spiritual visions 
and decisions. Thoroughly efficient work, 
therefore, with the young people in our 
churches and Sunday schools necessitates 
a careful study of this critical period and 
vital process which we call adolescence, 

In greater or less degree the crisis of 
adolescence has been discerned by all races 
and generations. Even savage and bar- 
barous peoples were deeply impressed by 
the mystery of life and reproduction 
which culminate early in this period, and 
signalized the entrance upon manhood 


Adolescence 


and womanhood by elaborate rituals and 
public initiations which, with all their 
crudeness and vulgarity, often were deeply 
significant. “You find it in the lowest 
savage tribe,” says Dr. S. B. Haslett, 
“where the individual is mutilated, beaten, 
sent away to the forest to live or die ac- 
cording as he possesses or lacks the 
strength or endurance to undergo the ex- 
periences that form part of the ritual. 
You find it in the most elaborate service 
of the mother of churches, the Roman 
Catholic, where the applicant is trained, 
instructed, robed, honored and finally con- 
firmed amid all the splendor of that con- 
firmation rite. Between these two, range 


Adolescence 


with boys particularly in mind. It should 
be remembered that girls in their teens are 
developed, on the average, two years earlier 
than boys. The chart of course can only 
suggest averages, and large allowance 
must be made for precocious and retarded 
cases; hence the overlapping ages sug- 
gested. 

The three adolescent periods are found 
to correspond approximately with the 
periods of grammar school age, high school 
age and college age. While this allusion 
is a convenient one it must not be for- 
gotten that only about five per cent of 
middle adolescent boys are in high school 
and hardly one per cent of late adolescents 


PERIOD AGE LIMITS CHARACTERISTICS WILL-ACHIEVEMENT 
BABYHOOD 0-2 years (Before spat baer ¢ Self-Discovery 
Early 2-6 The Self Period 
CHILDHOOD— Self-Control 
Later 7-11 The Clique Period 
BOYHOOD 10-14 The Gang Period Comradeship 
EARLY Corot Bok The Chivalry Period Personal Loyal 
ADOLESCENCE Sent cs chool e Chivalry Perio erso oyalty 
MIDDLE 15-18 The Self-Agsertive : 
ADOLESCENCE | High School Age Period Self-Reliance 
LATE 18-24 The Codperative : 
ADOLESCENCE| College Age Period Leadership 


the manifold forms and ceremonies that 
man in all stages of his long course from 
savagery to culture has developed and ob- 
served for the initiation of the young 
adolescent into the new life.” Brutal 
though much of this treatment was, and 
usually lacking in delicacy and true sym- 
pathy, sometimes, as in the case of some 
American Indian tribes, it rose to heights 
of true religious sentiment. It all sug- 
gests that the emphasis upon confirmation 
rites in many churches, and in the stress 
upon conversion in other churches, with 
an impressive service when young persons 
are welcomed into church membership, is 
quite in accord with nature. 

The Periods of Childhood and Adoles- 
cence. Before attempting to describe in 
detail this critical development which we 
call adolescence, it may be well to suggest 
a simple division of childhood and youth 
into sub-periods. The chart is planned 


are in college. The high school problem 
is immensely important, because it in- 
volves the development of future leader- 
ship; yet the bulk of boys and girls in 
their middle teens are wage earners, who 
by assuming responsibilities come to ma- 
turity earlier than young people in school. 
Child laborers tend to “short-circuit” 
directly from childhood to manhood, 
therefore losing much of the rich and 
beautiful character values of the adoles- 
cent development. Savagery has a pitiably 
short adolescence. By postponing mar- 
riage and other responsibilities to the 
twenties, and thus lengthening youth, civ- 
ilization has greatly enriched human life. 

Physical Development in Adolescence. 
As has already been suggested, the pro- 
found changes of the adolescent years 
are fundamentally physical. The higher 
needs of growing young people cannot be 


adequately met until their physical needs — 


a 


ee nee 


Adolescence 


are understood. Abuse or neglect of the 
body tends to dwarf mind and soul. Early 
adolescence is the critical period for lay- 
ing life’s foundations in physical health. 
Growth is now more rapid than at any 
other time except the first year of life. 
Acceleration in the growth in height pre- 
cedes weight development, and the bones 
are now growing fast. All parts respond 
to the sudden expansion, but the growth is 
far from even or symmetrical. Dispro- 
portionate growth of limbs and the heavier 
muscles tend to make the boys awkward 
and their movements uncertain, causing 
them much embarrassment. Because of 
this poor motor-control at the “awkward 
age” fine work requiring physical accu- 
racy must not be expected of the boys and 
girls until the accessory muscles have 
better developed. Enforced overstrain 
now may result in serious nervousness 
later. From twelve to fifteen years the 
girls usually excel the boys in physical 
development, especially height, because of 
earlier pubescence. This causes the boys 
much chagrin and has much to do with 
the mutual aversion between boys and 
girls, common for a few years in later 
childhood and early adolescence. 

The sex development in girls not only 
comes earlier, by from one to three years, 
but is much more rapid than in boys. It 
is attended by the broadening of the hips, 
alterations in the bones of the arches of 
the feet and the pelvic region, and the de- 
velopment of graceful curves in place of 
angularity and early awkwardness. In 
boys with the development of the sex 
glands, the larynx grows and the vocal 
cords lengthen, causing the voice to 
deepen, after more or less uncertainty 
for awhile. In middle adolescence the 
beard appears. Lungs and heart are 
greatly enlarged now in both sexes, and 
the senses all develop in keenness of per- 
ception, and even the skin becomes more 
sensitive. Not only does the keener sensi- 
tiveness to the odors of the woods, and a 
clearer vision and more accurate ear 
make the boys and girls at this period 
lovers of nature and the outdoor world, 
but a new appreciation of art is now 
possible. It is the time to develop the 
sense of the beautiful, to cultivate the ear 
for music, and to discover the esthetic 
values of life which are woefully neglected 
in America. 


Adolescence 


There are wonderfully few deaths in 
early adolescence, probably because vital- 
ity and energy are constantly increasing, 
thus offering great resistance to disease 
which results practically in immunity to 
fatal illness. This tremendous youthful 
energy must find outlet, and expresses 
itself either in games and play or in mis- 
chievous pranks and juvenile delin- 
quency. In middle adolescence the girls 
attain their full height, and sometimes 
tend to lose slightly in weight. Most boys 
are now nearly “man-grown,” though 
many cases grow an inch or more later in 
college (a result of gymnasium work). 
This “storm and stress period” of high 
school age is a time of physical tempta- 
tion and struggle. The physical impulses 
are strong, often ungovernable. I¢ is the 
time when life habits tend to become fixed. 
It is usually a time of splendid health and 
astonishing vigor, alternating with lan- 
guor and laziness. 

In late adolescence comes the perfect 
muscular coordination and accuracy of 
movement lacking in early teens, and the 
physical self-mastery which has been a 
slow conquest through the years. Growth 
in breadth and compactness continues, and 
endurance develops; but a strange sus- 
ceptibility to disease appears, and there 
are more deaths in the early twenties than 
in any other five-year period until sixty- 
five. Premature aging at this period, 
however, is less common than formerly; 
partly because girls are living more out-of- 
doors. Under normal conditions this 
period lays the foundation for permanent 
health for life. It is fair to the colleges 
to state that the small per cent of late 
adolescents who are college students aver- 
age better health and a lower death rate 
than young men and women of the same 
age who are wage earners; though for 
various reasons a century ago the reverse 
was doubtless true. 

The limits of this article will not per- 
mit adequate treatment of the topic of 
hygiene. The physical needs of adolescent 
boys and girls are of vital importance and 
demand most intelligent care. The danger 
of overstrain has been noted already. 
Girls susceptible to hysterical neuroses 
should be carefully guarded from shock. 
The cigarette habit is an omnipresent evil 
which boys even in pre-adolescent days 
have to face. (See Cigarette Evil.) It 


Adolescence 


should be persistently dealt with in early 
adolescence, but always reasonably and 
sympathetically. Instruction in personal 
hygiene should be given suitably in every 
grade of school and careful sex education 
cannot safely be neglected. (See Sex 
Education in §. 8S.) So vitally are all the 
issues of life bound up in the normal and 
wholesome sex development, it is tragic to 
think of the shipwrecked lives whose evil 
practices were primarily due to sheer ig- 
norance and neglect. The recent awak- 
ening on this subject insures the youth of 
the future a better chance than in the past 
to receive sensible constructive explana- 
tions of the deepest facts of the physical 
life, which will protect them from untold 
evils. It should, however, not be supposed 
that sex instruction alone will win the 
battle against sex temptations; it will 
require the constant moral support of a 
religious life. 

Mental and Social Development. The 
boy on the verge of adolescence is at the 
first great crisis of his life; and though 
he understands it not, he is conscious of 
strange movings within him. It is of 
course a mental and social crisis no less 
than physical, and should be religious 
also; for it involves essentially a new birth 
of the person into a larger life. It is the 
new birth of bodily functions and un- 
known powers, but also of new thoughts, 
feelings, sympathies, ambitions, emotions, 
passions, ideals and convictions; in short, 
of everything which deepens, exalts and 
enriches the boy’s life. It is even more 
intensely true in the case of the young 
girl in budding womanhood. (See Girl, 
The; Girl, The City.) 

Adolescence is the real birth of the indi- 
vidual into independence in thinking, 
feeling, choosing; though not fully real- 
ized for several years to come. It marks 
_the slow awakening of the God-given rea- 
son, born to supersede instinct and to 
check or direct impulse. It is especially 
the flowering of the social instinct, which 
hitherto has been less strong. With the 
birth of altruistic feeling, childish self- 
ishness is outgrown, and life interests 
broaden with new friendships. The youth 
becomes a citizen, a social unit in the 
state, worthy of the toga virtlis which the 
‘Romans conferred at fourteen. 

(A) Early adolescence may be called 
the bridge period between childhood and 


Adolescence 


youth. It marks rather sharply the transi- 
tion from the childish life of instinct and 
impulse to reason; from the natural self- 
ishness of childhood to youth’s altruism ; 
from the dominance of gang ethics, for 
the boy, to individual ethics controlled by 
a personal conscience ; and from the imita- 
tive religion of the child, with its unques- 
tioning acceptance of tradition, to the per- 
sonal religion of adolescence with its deep- 
ening experience. Deep foundations are 
now being laid in personal loyalty, in 
genuine friendships and in religious expe- 
rience; also in personal ambition for voca- 
tional usefulness, and in social adjustment 
and codperation. Both boys and girls now 
feel a new independence, and show it in 
word and action. Yet there is much fickle- 
ness, indecision, dreaming, longing; often 
painful self-consciousness, shyness, loneli- 
ness, a great longing for sympathy and a 
willingness to share it, with a real hero- 
worship for the object of one’s admiration. 

It is natural for the child to trust the 
will of others and to accept their judg- 
ment and advice. But with the early teens 
comes a new sense of selfness and inde- 
pendence which brings a real will-crists in 
many a family. Many boys and girls now 
chafe bitterly at restraints and resent even 
well-meaning attempts to curtail their 
liberty. They intuitively feel that the 
folks at home do not perceive their de- 
veloping manhood or womanhood and the 
measure of freedom it deserves. They 
feel they are not appreciated or under- 
stood, though they are usually silent about 


it. In view of this will-crisis, it is clear. 


that the adolescent’s obedience to par- 
ents and teachers must be a reasoning obe- 
dience to reasonable requests, or trouble 
may be expected. It is folly to attempt to 
“break” the boy’s will; rather must we 
see the wisdom of changing gradually the 
authority in the boy’s life from external to 
internal control; of gradually withdraw- 
ing parental control, to develop the boy’s 
self-control. Only thus can his own will 
grow strong. In this process the church, 
particularly the Sunday school, may have 
a large and helpful share. 


(B) Middle adolescence intensifies the — 


permanent qualities and tendencies of the 
earlier period. It is quite generally ap- 
preciated that this is the most important 
period of a human life. 


It is the time © 
when the great issues of life begin to be — 


a Se 


Adolescence 


settled. Foundations, to be sure, are laid 
earlier, and many life-habits are already 
formed; but now character is determined, 
ideals accepted and life plans formulated. 
Seldom does manhood belie the prophecy 
of the middle teens. This is the period of 
self-discovery, self-revelation, as the boy’s 
individuality comes to a focus, and the 
girl comes to understand herself. Inde- 
pendence often grows into self-assertion 
and obstinacy. Mecklessness, fickleness, 
conceit, impulsiveness are quite character- 
istic now, resulting in strange extremes 
in ideals and in action. Self-reliance 
is developing rapidly, with the new 
sense of personal power. As impulse 
wanes, reason becomes increasingly domi- 
nant and conscientiousness is often 
very marked. It is a time of strong 
emotions. Feelings of envy and jealousy 
are soon followed by fine sympathy and 
genuine kindness; while over-sensitiveness 
to slights alternates with great generosity. 
It is the beautiful age of fine sentiment 
and new-born idealism, warm friend- 
ships, high aspirations, noble ambitions 
and the birth of real altruism. All things 
considered, it is the most interesting, fas- 
cinating, and dangerous—the most mo- 
mentous period of life. It is now or never 
with the boy or girl—body, mind and 
spirit. ‘The Christian church faces no 
more strategic opportunity than to help 
the youth in middle teens in the making 
of manhood or womanhood. 

At this period most boys are working 
for a living, having left school at least as 
soon as the law allowed. The employed 
boys are quite a different problem from 
the boys in the high schools, often losing 
much of the valuable development of nat- 
ural adolescence. Their precocity is often 
unfortunate, sometimes attended by 
arrested mental development on lines not 
connected with their special interests. 
Some working boys however are excep- 
tionally bright. ‘They deserve all possible 
help on their life problem. Continua- 
tion schools, night schools, correspondence 
schools, etc., are helping in countless ways 
to develop the capacity of the more ambi- 
tious working boys. Employed girls are 
very numerous also at this period, and 
form a very serious social problem in our 
cities, especially where they are working 
for less than a living wage. 

This period is often called the “storm 


Adolescence 


and stress period,” and with good reason. 
The battle royal of life is fought out in 
the moral struggles of these older boys. 
Sometimes they are well-anchored to a 
fine, strong Christian home and equipped 
with the panoply of a real faith, but 
oftener not. In any case they are in seri- 
ous moral danger. Bad companions are 
bidding for their friendship, and luring 
them on in half-innocent ways until insid- 
iously the shackles of an evil loyalty are 
forged. Excessive social life, particu- 
larly in the city high school which in most 
respects, good and bad, apes the colleges, 
is seriously complicating our problem in 
these years. ‘Too much doing which does 
not count; divided interests which pre- 
vent concentrated study and develop the 
superficial habit; unwholesome recrea- 
tions, crowding out real exercise and 
manly sports; midnight dancing and other 
amusements instead of healthy fun; all 
these tend to the forced development of a 
hot-house life that is very abnormal. It is 
nervously exciting and weakening for the 
girl and thoroughly bad for the boy, scat- 
tering energies, undermining strength and 
high purposes and making more difficult 
the struggle for character. The tension is 
too high for health, morals or scholarly 
work. 

Temptations to gamble, to acquire the 
drink habit, and to yield to sex perver- 
sions assault the boy on every side. Often 
the cigarette habit, started in childhood, 
has undermined the boy’s moral stamina 
as well as his nervous energy, and helps 
him to yield to these other temptations. 
Quickly he becomes a victim of lost ambi- 
tion, which perhaps is most serious of all. 
Somehow the disillusioned hopes and de- 
throned ideals must be restored and new 
vitality be gotten into the boy’s will. He 
must be given right ideals of manliness, 
backed by Christian men who mean busi- 
ness when they say they want to help him. 

(C) With the large majority of young 
people there ts really no late adolescence, 
for by this time they have already assumed 
the responsibilities of manhood or woman- 
hood. Mental and social development 
continues however for some years, not 
only for the host of picked youth in our 
colleges, but thousands of others whose 
minds are still plastic and eager to learn. 
It is in general a period of reconstruction 
and readjustment to a larger world; a 


Adolescence 


time of increasing seriousness and a better 
sense of proportion and the fitness of 
things; a time for determining one’s per- 
manent life standards and scale of life 
values. There is great volitional vigor 
now, the will to achieve, to make life 
count. Vocational interests are para- 
mount. There is a real hunger for self- 
expression and for responsibility. Re- 
sourcefulness, except among the mentally 
lazy, is notably strong, developing per- 
sonal initiative and leadership along lines 
of personal talent. 

The sub-topic, the development of social 
and ethical ideals, is a fascinating one; 
and another, the causes and treatment 
of juvenile delinquency (see Juvenile 
Court), is an exceedingly important one; 
but we can give but little space to either. 
Our reformatories and jails are still filled 
with mere boys, and crime seems to be 
growing continually more juvenile. The 
majority of criminals, by far, begin their 
careers of crime in adolescence or younger. 
Karly youth is still the great crime period. 
A leading authority, after studying thou- 
sands of cases of juvenile delinquency, 
reports that the maximal age for malicious 
mischief is only fourteen, for petty larceny 
and assaults fifteen, for crimes against 
property sixteen, and for fornication 
seventeen. (See Hall, G. S., Adolescence, 
y. I: p. 332.) 

Undoubtedly modern society has multi- 
plied boy offenders by its artificial life, 
its mechanical, unsympathetic laws and 
stupid police, its inflexible school systems, 
lack of play facilities or vocational train- 
ing; while poverty, child labor, demoral- 
izing amusements, divorce, and the con- 
tributory negligence of parents have been 
largely responsible for the sad story. In 
many places however public sentiment is 
now thoroughly awakened and there is 
great hope for the future. Thousands of 
boys and girls are being saved from delin- 
quency, not only by the direct spiritual 
agencies of churches and Sunday schools, 
but also by the social constructive treat- 
ment of the best communities, through 
fine systems of parks and playgrounds, 
wholesome amusements, schools of the 
modern type, vocational training, manual 
training, organized recreation, sym- 
pathetic laws, humane juvenile courts, 
detention homes and probation efficers, 
and a very widespread development of 


Adolescence 


welfare clubs for both sexes in great 
variety. 

We are coming to recognize that most 
boys and girls usually do what seems to 
them right; but that they have a crude 
system of ethics. Through self-centered 
childhood, selfishness is apt to be domi- 
nant, and later, with boys especially, the 
gang loyalty develops group selfishness and 
group ethics. The public opinion of the 
boy gang determines what is right and 
wrong for the boy in early adolescence— 
and it is not often in accord with Sunday- 
school principles! The gang is the power- 
ful censor of ethical ideals. It dictates a 
literal justice, the law of the strongest, in- 
sistence on “fair play,” prohibition of 
“snitching,” the free use of “mental 
reservations,” a slight respect for property 
rights, due to a peculiar sense of joint 
ownership which seems to hark back to the 
days of the primitive commune, and a 
double code of ethics for outsiders and in- 
siders, with a strict sense of honor among 
comrades in the gang. Through this maze 
of boy ethics, with all its crudeness, the 
boy conscience is developed by practice 
and exercise. He cannot be given a ready- 
made conscience; he has to develop his 
own. With the awakening and personaliz- 
ing which comes to the boy in early adoles- 
cence, he ought to escape soon from this 
strange ethical crudeness, this dominance 
by the social mandates of his fellows, and 
with a clean conscience, his own con- 
science, clarified by a personal religious 
ar be able to face the facts of 
ife. 

Religious Experience in Adolescence. 
The most wonderful chapter in this story 
of human adolescence is the way of God 
with the soul of the youth. Adolescence, 
with all its follies and crudities, is the 
most religious period of human life, espe- 
cially in the middle teens, when conscience 
is clear, ideals are high and emotions are 
strong and life visions of usefulness are 
beckoning on. 

(A) The Birth of Religious Feeling. 
Adolescence is essentially a new birth of 
the person into a larger life. The indi- 
viduality is now bursting into full flower. 
Friendship ripens into a real sharing of 
life. The very world becomes new to our 
boys and girls because of their changed 
vision of it. In the illumined face of 
adolescence, frankly reflecting new found 


Adolescence 


joy and the feelings of largeness and 
height of life, do we see the message of 
Revelation : “And I saw a new heaven and 
a new earth: for the first heaven and the 
first earth were passed away and all things 
are become new.” Now supremely is the 
time in a human life upon this earth when 
“He that sitteth on the throne” seems to 
say, “Behold I make all things new. The 
first things [childish things| are passed 
away.” : 

Clearly now is the time for the birth of 
the new spiritual life with all the rest. 
The religious instincts, emotions, motives 
and ideals may naturally be brought to a 
focus now in the life of the boys and girls, 
in the new birth of the soul. A decision 
for Jesus Christ and the new life of the 
spirit is projected by the whole force of a 
freshly awakened personality which now 
welcomes the new religious experience as 
the normal thing. If conversion comes 
now in early adolescence, at the flood tide 
of the spirit, it means the birth of a deep 
religious feeling. Its impulsive energy 
exalts the hero-worship so natural to this 
period, and often develops a fine loyalty 
to the Master, for this is the “chivalry 
period” in the boy’s life. It is the main 
business of the church with this boy in his 
teens, especially through the Sunday 
school, to anticipate this religious crisis in 
his life, and to watch for the sunrise in 
his soul. This early conversion comes 
even more naturally to the girl in early 
teens, because of her earlier development. 
Pastors and teachers who are skillful spir- 
itual gardeners will guide and encourage 
them both to consecrate their lives now 
earnestly and joyously to their Savior 
Jesus Christ. 

(B) The Culmination of Religious Pur- 
pose. In middle adolescence, individual 
uty is the key word best describing the 
religious development. Under natural 
conditions the older boy grows in self- 
reliance and self-respect with every battle 
he wins. He has normally high ideals and 
noble sentiments, and great susceptibility 
to friendship and to manly leadership; 
but best of all. there is something in his 
soul which responds to the sincere reli- 
gious appeal and develops into religious 
purpose. The life chance should come 
now to every youth born to the purple, 
the royal birth-right of sonship to God, 
the chance with the help of Christ to live 


Adolescence 


a kingly life, to master self, to throttle 
evil passions and unworthy emotions, to 
crown his talent with growing efficiency 
and usefulness; in short to grow into sym- 
metrical, well-rounded Christian manli- 
ness, the three-fold life which makes a 
man in body, mind and spirit. It is this 
devotion to a worthy life ambition to 
which normal conversion now leads. In 
boyhood imagination soars; in youth, am- 
bition. It is the age of faith. When con- 
version comes in the middle teens, as it 
usually does for boys (a little later than 
girls), the experience is deeper and fuller 
than in the shallower life currents of 
childhood. The full tides of feeling and 
emotion give impressiveness and power to 
the experience, and developing reason in- 
terprets more intelligently its meaning to 
the soul. This is not saying that children 
should not be given the chance for a 
simple sincere religious experience, suited 
to their development. The youngest are 
not too young to be true friends of Jesus. 
Then let the friendship grow until in the 
teens it becomes a sworn and steadfast 
loyalty. 

The winning appeal to the boy at this 
period is the broad appeal to his whole 
growing manhood. He needs to learn that 
the well-rounded manhood which he covets 
needs culture on the spiritual side to com- 
plete its symmetry. He will welcome any 
means which will help him in his life 
problem. In his struggle for character, 
our older boy and girl need friendship— 
constant, sympathetic, and discerning; 
but above all they must have a living 
friendship with Jesus Christ their Savior. 
Give them the great protection of the 
Christ love, the high incentive of the 
Christ ideals, the mighty impulse of the 
Christian purpose, born in the heart 
through conversion, and the Christ loyalty 
and brotherly comradeship of the Chris- 
tian Church, and you have armed them 
with all the panoply of God. 

(C) Deepening Convictions and Enlist- 
ment for Service. In late adolescence 
comes the crisis of independent thinking 
and the struggle with doubt, especially to 
young people in college. However if the 
religious life has been normal in the 
earlier periods, it will be easy and natura! 
now. If neglected or belated previously, 
the problem will be more difficult. Often 
the skeptical tendencies which appear at 


Adolescence 


this period are of brief duration, as the 
young man thinks his way through inde- 
pendently and finds surer ground for faith 
than before. At all events he must have 
freedom for independent thinking. He is 
apt to resent the tyranny of dogmatic 
tradition. 'The college man is the born 
Protestant. He worships reality, sincer- 
ity, and will brook no sham, pretense or 
cant. Empty forms or professions, how- 
ever pious, he will have none of. His 
doubts sometimes are serious—and there 
are doubts that are the fruit of sin; but 
usually they are not symptoms of decay, 
but the growing pains of a larger, stronger 
faith, in which his tested soul ultimately 
finds rest and satisfaction. (See Crises 
in Spiritual Development; Doubt, Deal- 
ing with, in the S. S.) 

This freedom of conscience, the college 
youth must have. It is the only atmos- 
phere in which a modern, intelligent 
faith can grow. But his religion must 
grow strong through exercise. The col- 
lege student’s growing capacity for codp- 
eration is a significant thing. He covets 
power, not merely to lead, but to serve. 
Service is the word oftenest heard in our 
Christian colleges. There is ever a rising 
tide of earnestness in our college youth 
in America, which impels them to apply 
their religion helpfully in social service. 
The best way to get rid of doubts is not 
merely to think them through but to work 
them off. Faith thus grows strong with 


testing. This practical emphasis in the 


religion of late adolescents soon leads 


them into the normal religion of adult | 


manhood to-day, the religion of the 
mature life, a religion which is not meta- 
physical nor introspective, but the prac- 
tical, helpful religion of applied Chris- 
tianity. Religiously now the boy has be- 


come a man. 
G. W. FIske. 


References: 
Coe, G. A. Hducation in Religion 


and Morals. (Chicago, 1904.) 
Fiske, G. W. Boy Life and Self- 
Government. (New York, 1910.) 


Forbush, W. B. The Boy Problem. 
Kd. 3. (Boston, c1902.) 

Hall, G.S. Adolescence. 2v. (New 
York, 1905.) 

Hall, W. S. From Youth to Man- 
hood. (New York, 1909.) 


Adult Department 


Haslett, S. B. Pedagogical Bible 
School. Ed. 4. (New York, c1912.) 

Slattery, Margaret. The Girl in Her 
Teens. (Philadelphia, 1910.) 

Starbuck, E. D. Psychology of Reli-. 
gion. (London, 1899.) 

Swift, E. J. Mind in the Making. 
(New York, 1908.) 


ADULT BIBLE CLASSES.—Srxz ApvuLtT 
DEPARTMENT; ADULT ScHOOL MOVE- 
MENT; AGoGaA AND AMOMA BIBLE 
Cuasses; Baraca-PHILATHEA BIBLE 
CuiassEs ; DREXEL BIDDLE BIBLE CLASSES; 
LoyaL MovEMENT; ORGANIZED ADULT 
CLASSES; ORGANIZED CLAss MOVEMENT; 
WESLEY ADULT BIBLE CLASSES. 


ADULT DEPARTMENT.—I. Growth 
of the Adult Department Idea. During 
all of its early life the Sunday school con-- 
tinued as an organization chiefly for chil- 
dren. The few adults who, in addition to 
the officers and teachers, attended the 
school formed the Bible class. So com-— 
pletely did the thought prevail that the 
Sunday school was for children only, that 
the Bible class was not considered an in- 
tegral part of the school but met by itself. 
Gradually, however, this separation was 
overcome, and with the thought that 
adults had a real place in the Sunday 
school, more attention came to be given 
to the formation of Bible classes. In the 
last third of the nineteenth century, under 
the impetus of the widespread movement 
for Bible study, Adult classes rapidly in- 
creased. The growth of these classes gave 
to many a new vision of the possibilities 
of the Sunday school as an organization 
for men and women as well as for chil- 
dren—a true church school, the religious 
educational agency of the church for 
people of all ages, 

The first Adult departments were prob- 
ably not in local Sunday schools, but in 
general organizations for the promotion 
and advancement of Sunday-school work. 
For example, in 1903 the Cook County 
[Illinois] Sunday School Association 
established an Adult Department to pro- 
mote the organization of Adult classes in 
the Sunday school. In the same year 
similar action was taken by the Illinois 
State Sunday School Association. In 
this action there was implicit the sugges- 
tion of an Adult Department in the local 
school, to unite all the classes for adults. 


Adult Department 


From this time on the desirability and 
need for such a department was frequently 
urged. During these years, also, depart- 
mental organization was gradually work- 
ing up through the school from the ele- 
mentary grades. From having a Primary 
Department, the most progressive schools 
advanced to the organization of a Be- 
ginners’ Department for the younger chil- 
dren, and a Junior Department for those 
above the Primary age. This led to agi- 
tation for Intermediate and Senior de- 
partments for the young people in their 
teens, and for Adult departments for 
those beyond. Among the larger schools a 
considerable number of the best now have 
well organized Adult departments, while 
the tendency thus to provide more ade- 
quately for the strengthening and ad- 
vancing of the work for adults is con- 
stantly increasing. 

II. Characteristics and Needs of Adults. 
The Adult Department should include all 
the adults of the school. The range of 
age is wide, from twenty-one to three- 
‘score years and beyond. This wide range 
of age, for one thing, makes the psychol- 
ogy of the Adult Department complex. 
It is also true that there is a more pro- 
nounced individuality among adults than 
among children. An adult class is likely 
to have less solidarity than a class of any 
other age, and adult classes are certain to 
differ from one another more widely than 
‘any others. With the close of the ado- 
lescent period, in the early twenties, the 
unsettled conditions so characteristic of 
adolescence pass away. Generally speak- 
ing the mind as well as the body takes on 
a more sober and settled caste; the emo- 
tions are more stable, the will is stronger 
and more resolute and at the same time 
less erratic and more sustained in its pur- 
poses. Imagination is tamed, enthusiasm 
‘tempered, and if personal ideals are less 
lofty there is likewise less of bigotry and 
of the critical spirit. The early years of 

adult life are commonly a period of re- 
construction in religious thought. Star- 
buck’s statement is valid for very many 
‘persons. He says: “The common trend 
of religious growth is from childhood 
faith, through doubt, reaction, and es- 
trangement into a positive hold on reli- 
gion, through an individual reconstrue- 
tion of belief and faith.” (Psychology of 
Religion, p. 283). Reconstrucztion is 


Adult Department 


sometimes effected within a brief period 
in the closing years of adolescence, but 
with a larger proportion it is a gradual 
process extending over five, ten, or even 
fifteen or more years of adult life. Dur- 
ing this time the person is engaged in 
working out his own interpretation of life 
and, though perhaps unconsciously, in 
striving to gain a positive and satisfying 
faith. The result may be positive or neg- 
ative; if positive, the person may either 
attain to an individual adult viewpoint 
or he may turn back to his old childhood 
beliefs, clinging to them tenaciously as 
his only salvation; while the negative 
result consists in an abandonment of any 
attempt to attain a satisfying faith, and 
a settling down into a permanent attitude 
of negation toward religion. (See Reli- 
gion, Psychology of.) 

In this process of reconstruction, adults 
need the guidance of wise Biblical teach- 
ers. They require aid in making the dis- 
crimination between essential truth and 
nonessential beliefs, in building their 
structure of faith upon the foundation of 
some truth which appeals to them as vital 
and incontrovertible, and in resolving the 
contradictions which their increasing ex- 
periences of life present to them. Help 
may often be afforded through the study 
of poetry, and by music and art, as well | 
as by direct Bible study. In some cases 
the teacher may help most by reénforc- 
ing the sense of moral duty and obliga- 
tion, trusting that the path of loyalty to 
the moral virtues will in time lead to a re- 
birth of religious sentiments and con- 
victions. In every case much importance 
should be attached to activity. Definite 
help may be depended upon to come 
through personal social and religious serv- 
ice for others. 

While adults as individuals have widely 
different needs, and while different classes 
will likewise have widely varying needs 
growing out of differences in education, 
occupation, age, and so forth, all adult 
classes may be assumed to have certain 
needs in common because these’ are re- 
quirements of human life under any and 
every condition. It is through a consid- 
eration of the common requirements that 
we shall be able to discover certain funda- 
mental universal principles of adult reli- 
gious education. 

Adult interests are often limited and 


Adult Department 


restricted because men and women have 
come to adult age with but few broaden- 
ing educative influences upon their lives. 
If life is to be rich and strong it must 
have a wide range of interests. A man’s 
life consists not in the abundance of the 
things which he possesseth, but in the 
abundance of his tnner possessions. That 
life is poverty stricken which does not 
have a store of permanent value interests. 
The soul has small chance if in hours of 
stress or temptation no opportunity of 
choice as to what the mind shall attend is 
afforded. It is not easy to build up new 
interests in adults, nevertheless it is a part 
of the teacher’s task, and one to which he 
should direct his efforts. “The end of 
moral education,” says H. C. King, is 
“to bring the individual, on the one hand, 
into the possession of great and valuable 
interests ; and, on the other hand, to foster 
habits of persistent response to those in- 
terests.” (Personal and Ideal Elements 
in Education, p. 110). 

Always when one seeks to trace religion 
to its roots he finds himself in the realm 
of the feelings. The cultivation of the 
religious emotions is a second great com- 
mon need of adults. If by some the 
emotional in religion has been overem- 
phasized, it is equally true that by others 
the relation of the feelings to right con- 
duct and the building of righteous char- 
acter has been underestimated. The truth 
is that the feelings are a wellspring of all 
that is true, and pure, and noble. Far 
from being an evidence of weakness, they 
are that within man which proves his kin- 
ship to divinity. In the yearnings, the 
inarticulate cries, the hopes and fears and 
affections, the hunger and thirst of the 
soul for the higher satisfactions is seen 
the evidence that the Lord God has made 
man for himself and that the soul of man 
will find no rest until it rests in him. 

It is particularly the responsibility of 
the religious teacher to fulfill the pro- 
phetic word of G. Stanley Hall—“In the 
near future education will focus upon the 
feelings, sentiments, emotions, and try 
to do something for the heart out of 
which are the issues of life.’ This is no 
task for superficial effort. It is not 
enough to make a shallow appeal to the 
feelings. If the teacher is to make men 
feel deeply and strongly, he must be able 
to make them see. When he so presents 


Adult Department 


truth that it convinces the reason as well | 
as grips feeling, he has indeed placed fuel | 
in the.-mind on which the emotions may 

feed. The Sunday school has a special 
opportunity for satisfying the social in- 

stinct. Adults crave fellowship, and this 

is a hunger which the church in the past 

has failed to satisfy. Witness the almost 

innumerable fellowship organizations, a 

goodly proportion of whose members are 

churchmen. It is only now beginning to 

be realized the extent to which personal 

association of the right sort may be a 

chief means to character as well as to 

happiness. There is no more potent, 

neverfailing educative influence in the 

world than personal association. We may 

be perfectly assured that if through the 

adult classes the irreligious can be brought | 
into close personal association with strong, 

positive Christian characters there will be 

fruitful results in character building. 

This same principle should cause the’ 
teacher to perceive that he cannot do his 
part by merely talking to his class once on 
Sunday. He must give himself to the class. 
It is by the touch of life upon life, infi- 
nitely more than by definitions and argu-_ 
ments, that his work is to be made vital. 
The social instinct finds its highest satis- | 
faction in fellowship with the Great Com-_ 
panion, Beyond utilizing the principle 
of personal association, and making him-_ 
self the associate and friend of every mem-_ 
ber of his class, the adult teacher must) 
bring God as a present help, as the Divine 
Friend and Companion, into the lives of 
his pupils. 

Psychology, with all its recent emphasis | 
upon the will as the primary function of 
mind, will not allow one to overlook the | 
fundamental importance of action in S| 
ligious education. Hoéffding’s statement 
is significant and striking: “As Fichte 
taught, the most original thing in us is) 
the impulse to action; it is given before 
the consciousness of the world and cannot) 
be derived from it.” Indeed, the example 
of the Great Teacher should be sufficient 
to influence the teacher of religion never, 
to be satisfied with the appeal to the in- 
tellect and the emotions alone. Christ’s 
most characteristic word was: “Follow 
me.” He did not first impart information 
or appeal to the emotions; his first step 
was to call to action. His central appeal | 
was to the will. “Whosoever shall do the) 









Adult Department 


will of God, the same is my brother.” He 
never stopped short of directing his hear- 
ers into definite lines of action. The 
fundamental need for action is evident 
when it is considered that neither thought 
nor feeling is complete without it. 
Without accompanying action thought is 
an imperfect process, and without its ap- 
propriate expression feeling is starved and 
weakened. This must make it apparent 
that neither intellectual nor moral growth 
in the members of the classes can be ex- 
pected unless the plans include provision 
for proper expressive activities. (See 
Activity and its Place in Religious Edu- 
eation; Social Aspects of Religious . . . 
Education. ) . 

It is through meeting adequately these 
fundamental needs which all adults have 
in common that one may most confidently 
hope to attain the great central aim of 
religious education. That aim, to restate 
in summary form what has been stated al- 
ready in the foregoing paragraphs, is not 
merely to furnish information or to stir 
shallow feelings, but rather to lead men 
and women into larger, richer, fuller life— 
into the more abundant life, which Jesus 
Christ came to reveal and supply. (John 
10:10.) The end is also finely stated in 
these words of the apostle: “For the per- 
fecting of the saints, . . . unto the build- 
ing up of the body of Christ: till we all 
attain unto the unity of the faith, and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a 
full grown man, unto the measure of the 
‘stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 
4: 12-13). 

_ III. Materials and Methods. The fore- 
going discussion suggests the necessity in 
the Adult Department of (1) An Adult 
Curriculum, (2) Provision for Adult 
Worship. (3) A Program of Adult Ac- 
tivities, 

1. Adult Curriculum and Methods of 
Teaching. It is evident that no other de- 
partment of the school presents such 
varied requirements. The course of study 
for a particular class should be decided 
‘upon only after consideration of the needs 
of the class and chiefly with reference to 
those needs. Courses must be provided 
which will meet the needs of a wide 
Variety of classes, and so arranged in se- 
iquence as to afford a program of study 
continuing through a number of years. 
As yet the very large majority of adult 





Adult Department 


classes continue to use the International 
Uniform Lessons but there is constantly 
increasing expression of desire on the 
part of the classes themselves for special- 
ized courses, and every year sees a larger 
number of classes turning from the Uni- 
form Lessons to courses which make a 
stronger appeal to class interests. So long 
as all the classes of the school continued 
to use a common lesson it seemed inad- 
visable for the Adult classes to break the 
bond of unity. This objection to change 
has now lost its force and one may expect 
to find a larger number of classes demand- 
ing courses fitted to their individual class 
needs, 

Every Adult Department should offer 
advanced courses in Bible study and other 
related subjects. These courses will pro- 
vide an opportunity for serious study for 
those so minded. There are undoubtedly 
many who have never been attracted by 
the unsystematic Bible study of the past 
who would welcome an opportunity to 
pursue consecutive courses so planned as 
to furnish a thorough knowledge of the 
Bible. From this time on there will be 
& greater number of young people who 
have come up through the grades, having 
completed the courses of the Intermediate 
and Senior departments, who are prepared 
for advanced studies. Opportunities 
should be offered for these, and for all 
those whose education, training, and 
native gifts fit them for serious study and 
for a measure of independent investiga- 
tion, to pursue their studies under the 
direction of the church school. 

Advanced Bible study should be offered 
in such subjects as the rise and develop- 
ment of prophecy, the teachings of the 
various prophets, the legal literature of 
the Old Testament, the literature of Wis- 
dom, the Psalter as a manual of devotion, 
the teaching of Jesus, the teaching of 
Paul, the purposes and messages of vari- 
ous New Testament books, as Matthew, 
Luke, John, Romans, Galatians, Ephe- 
sians, Hebrews, and others, the social 
teaching of the prophets and the social 
teaching of Jesus. In addition, there 
should be courses on the formation of the 
Canon, the history of the English Bible, 
the Protestant Reformation, the distinc- 
tive doctrines of Protestantism, Prot- 
estant theology during the nineteenth 
century, denominational history and 


Adult Department 14 


polity, and the history and present status 
of Christian missions, (See Adults, Elec- 
tive Courses for, in Bible Study; Gradu- 
ation and Graduate Courses.) 

The Sunday school which aims to pro- 
vide fully for the religious education of 
adults cannot overlook the religious and 
cultural value of study courses in such 
subjects as the history of Christian art, 
and the Christian teachings of such poets 
as Dante, Tennyson, Browning, Lowell, 
Gilder, and others. One of the most acute 
needs of modern society is for courses of 
study for parents in child nature and 
child nurture, and in such related sub- 
jects as home economy and neighborhood 
improvement. ‘This need may be pro- 
vided for most effectively, and with the 
least expenditure of time and effort in the 
Adult Department. 

The history of religion is an absorbing 
study. The intelligent Christian needs 
to know the significance, the strength and 
the weakness, of modern developments of 
religious thought. ‘There is a wide range 
of social questions which furnish impor- 
tant subjects of study. If the vital social 
problems of the day are ever settled it 
will be through the application of Chris- 
tian principles. The real church school 
cannot ignore them. ‘The introduction 
and use of extra-Biblical courses should 
be properly guarded. For example, it 
would not be well for any class to engage 
in extra-Biblical study continuously. A 
class can always go back to direct study 
of the Bible with profit. (See Extra- 
Biblical Studies. ) 

There will always be in the Sunday 
school some adults who do not have even 
an elementary working knowledge of the 
Bible. Consequently, the Adult Depart- 
ment should provide courses which will 
furnish an acquaintance with the history 
of Israel, the life of Jesus, the hfe and 
growth of the early Church, and the lives 
and writings of the apostles. Courses are 
now available, and are certain to be pro- 
duced in increasing number, which will 
serve this purpose. 

The Adult Department should share 
with the Senior Department the respon- 
sibility for training workers for school 
and church. As a rule, the work of train- 
ing may best center in the Senior Depart- 
ment though it is probable that among 
the adults of every school some will be 


Ly 


Adult Department 


found who should be engaged in prepara- 
tion for skilled service in some line. A 
class of men in training for work with 
boys, or for service in official positions in 
church or school, or a class of men and 
women in preparation for teaching, would 
be found to be a possibility in most de- 
partments. The training function of the 
department should be regarded as one of 
the most important. 

In many organized classes, in which a 
great deal is being done by the members 
in ways of practical service, it has not 
been found possible in the past to secure 
much study. While this may have been 
due in not a few cases more to deficiency 
in the teacher than to any other cause, it 
remains true that there should be a place 
for adult classes in which the study re- 
quirements are of the minimum kind, 
Some adults-are so circumstanced as to 
have almost no time for either reading 
or study; others who have time, entirely 
lack habits of study and are not disposed 
to form them. In such classes the teacher 
must necessarily become the lecturer. 
Other classes, unwilling to study, may be 
pleased to become Bible reading classes, 
the reading to be done at the time of the 
class session. | 

The ideal method of teaching in the 
Adult Department is that of free discus- 
sion. ‘The outstanding weakness in most 
adult teaching is that the teacher does too 
much talking. It cannot be too strongly 
impressed upon the teacher of adults that 
mere “telling is not teaching.” Only as 
the teacher really succeeds in making his 
class a forum of discussion of the subjects 
of the course in use, does he vitally and 
strongly teach. The teacher should ear- 
nestly study ways and means of developing 
expression on the part of all the mem- 
bers of the class. | 

2. Provision for Adult Worship, An 
essential part of adult religious education, 
as already stated, consists in the cultiva- 
tion of the religious feelings. For the 
most part this can best be accomplished 
through the public service of worship. 
On no account should the Adult Depart- 
ment provide a program of worship sim- 
ilar to that of the public service; rather, 
it should urge upon all its members the 
importance of participation in the wor- 
ship of the congregation. 

3. A Program of Adult Activities. Ac- 


Pi 
gi 


Adult Department 


tivity is the third chief factor in adult 
religious education ; possibly the most im- 
portant of the three. “Learning by do- 
ing” is a popular statement of a profound 
principle applicable throughout _ life. 
Since most of the adults in the classes 
have passed the period in life when new 
knowledge is most readily acquired the 
principle is more applicable here than in 
the other departments of the school. The 
teacher who succeeds in leading the mem- 
bers of his class to act upon the truth 
which they already know is quite as effec- 
tively influencing character as when he is 
pouring in new truth. One of the great- 
est needs of the churches is provision for 
definite religious service for every mem- 
ber and the active enlistment of every 
member in that service. Such a program 
of activities may be provided more effec- 
tively through the organized classes of the 
Sunday school than in any other means 
and this should be considered one of the 
first responsibilities of the Adult Depart- 
ment. (See Social Service and the S. S.) 
IV. Department Organization. The 
preceding discussion has presupposed an 
organized Adult Department in the school. 
The Sunday school which aims to be a 
real church school and to provide effec- 
tively for the religious education of adults 
will necessarily make as thorough provi- 
sion in the way of department organiza- 
tion for adults as for little children or for 
young people. Up to the present time 
many schools with organized adult classes 
have been content to have these classes 
only loosely connected with the school and 
with little or no interclass bond existing 
between them. This separation and lack 
of unity has been the outstanding weak- 
ness of adult class work. (See Organized 
Adult Classes). 
__ The organization of a department will 
bind the adult classes of the school to- 
gether in a desirable unity, while as con- 
_ stituting a distinct department the adults 
will have a desirable separation from the 
lower grades and at the same time that 
Integral relationship with the school as a 
whole which is so necessary. The number 
and kind of classes required in order that 
the school may minister to the entire adult 
community is a subject for careful in- 
vestigation and study. These classes will 


Adult Department 


they are organized they will require super- 
vision, and their teachers and officers will 
need to be brought together for mutual 
counsel and to plan for codperation. The 
field of activity and the aims and purposes 
of each class should be considered and de- 
cided upon in council. 

All this requires a well-organized Adult 
Department. All classes of adults con- 
nected with the school should be included 
as a part of the Adult Department. It is 
advisable, because simpler and easier, to 
do all the work planned by the school for 
adults through a single department. 
Overorganization needs to be guarded 
against. The principle should be the 
minimum of organization required for the 
maximum of efficiency. The school that 
has a well organized Adult Department 
with trained leadership, can carry out a 
full, complete program of instruction and 
activities for all possible adult groups. 
The organization need not be complex. 
There should be a department superin- 
tendent or principal, one assistant super- 
intendent, and a department secretary. 
In most cases no other officers will be re- 
quired. Such committees as the work 
seems to require from time to time should 
be provided. ‘There should be a depart- 
ment council, composed of the officers of 
the department and the teachers and presi- 
dents of all the adult classes. If there 
are other organizations in the church 
which do any religious educational work 
for adults the presidents of these organiza- 
tions should be invited to membership in 
the department council. 

In order that there may be an organized 
Adult Department it is unnecessary that 
the adult membership of the school meet 
apart from the lower grades. Where an 
inadequate building forbids a separate 
adult assembly there is yet abundant need 
for department organization, though the 
school that is adequately housed will have 
a separate assembly room and separate 
classrooms for the department, making 
possible an adult assembly. (See Archi- 
tecture, S. S.) W. C. Barcuay. 


References : 
Pearce, W. C. The Adult Buble 
Class. (Boston, 1908.) 


Wells, A. R. The Ideal Adult Class 
an the Sunday School. (Boston, 


not all spring into existence spontane- 


| c1912.) 
ously. They must be planned. After 


Wood, I. F., and Hall, N. M. Adult 


Adult School Movement 


Bible Classes and How to Conduct 
them. (Boston, c1906.) 

Wood, I. F. Adult Class Study. 
(Boston, 1911.) 


ADULT SCHOOL MOVEMENT (GREAT 
BRITAIN).—The Adult School move- 
ment is a vigorous and progressive organ- 
ization, largely confined to Great Britain, 
which has been in existence for a century, 
but has, for some sixty-five years, been 
constantly adapting its methods and 
teaching to the growing requirements of 
our times, especially in meeting the social, 
educational, and spiritual needs of men 
and women. It was cradled by the So- 
ciety of Friends, but although still draw- 
ing many of its best workers from that 
body, it has outgrown denominational 
barriers, and numbers among its members 
those of all ranks, creeds, temperaments 
and political parties. The bulk of its 
adherents, however, belong to the work- 
ing classes. The fellowship that binds the 
students together provides an almost ideal 
opportunity for the interchange of opin- 
ions upon those very subjects that most 
concern the well-being of either the indi- 
vidual or the community, and the basis of 
this fellowship is the desire to “work out 
the social and educational aspirations of 
our corporate life, in obedience to a spir- 
itual ideal.” 

This movement has many features in 
common with other institutions on behalf 
of a working-class education, such as the 
Mechanics’ Institute movement, the Work- 
ing Men’s College, and the Workers’ Edu- 
cational Association. All these have been 
of incalculable value in the democratic 
education of the English people, and have 
contributed in no small measure to the 
intelligent craftsmanship, sober judgment 
and progress in social reform which make 
for the well-being of a people. 

These are, however, officially non-reli- 
gious, in the sense that religious instruc- 
tion is no part of their program, but the 
Adult School movement has clearly laid 
hold of the inspiring energy of the reli- 
gious sentiment, and its central feature 
is the study of the laws of life, inspired 
by the progressive teaching of the Bible. 
An Adult School is not a Bible class in 
the usual meaning of that term, but the 
Bible is its textbook for the principles of 
life. No part of a school routine should 


Adult School Movement 


usurp the primary place of religious 
inquiry. 

It aims to spread abroad the spirit and 
character of Jesus, the Christ, among the 


democracy of the age, and it differs from 


the Brotherhood movement in the method 
it adopts as more in harmony with its 
own genius rather than in the aim it pur- 
sues. It generally avoids the hour of 
Sunday afternoon as being too reposeful 
for vigorous thought, and prefers to meet 
in the morning. The hour differs with 
the locality, and the large majority of 
men’s schools close previous to the hour 
of public worship, so that worshipers, if 
they wish, may attend the church services. 
Frank conversation is encouraged among 
the students, and under the guidance of 
a teacher questions and helpful contribu- 
tions are welcomed, but the feature of a 
lengthy address does not find favor. 
Women’s schools meet on Sunday after- 
noons, or on week-day evenings. 

In the United Kingdom there are about 
1900 schools, with 100,000 members. 
They are grouped into sub-unions, unions 
and federations, with a National Council 
at the head. Committees of the National 
Council help to direct the movement, and 
provide a lesson sheet for religious study, 
with handbook; guidance in social service 
and secular study, and also help to organ- 
ize week-end lecture schools and confer- 
ences for the greater efficiency of the 
work. Each school is self-governing and 
often self-supporting, and few restrictions 
are imposed by any constitution. Re- 
cently (1911 and 1912) visits have been 
exchanged between groups of English and 
German workmen in the belief that a 
closer knowledge of each other will unfold 
many common interests and serve the 
cause of international brotherhood. 

In collaboration with the National 


Council of P. S. A. Brotherhoods (see 


Brotherhoods in Great Britain), the 
National Adult School Union compiled 
The Fellowship Hymn Book which is 
widely used, already the sales having 


reached 190,000 through Adult School 


channels alone. 

The movement seeks to be truly edu- 
cative, as well as a witness of the evangel, 
not merely in the accumulation of knowl- 
edge, but in the wise guidance of life. It 
seeks to broaden sympathies, to teach pro- 
portionate views, to develop the power of 


the Uniform Lesson System. 


Adults, Elective Courses for 


personal service, and to enlarge the vision 


of the Kingdom of God. It should be 
more widely known among men and 
women who are doing their own thinking 
and among those who may find no home 
in the orthodox churches, and yet wish to 
serve their fellows in the fellowship of the 
spiritual life. 
ERNEST DoDGSHUN. 


References: 

Hudson, J. W. History of Adult 
Education. (London, 1851.) 

Pole, Thomas. History of the On- 
gin and Progress of Adult Schools. 
(Bristol, 1814.) 

Rowntree, J. W., and Binns, H. B. 
History of the Adult School Movement. 
(London, 1903.) 


ADULTS, ELECTIVE COURSES FOR, 
IN BIBLE STUDY.—The remarkable in- 
erease in the attendance of mature per- 
sons has created an entirely new set of 
Sunday-school problems. The educa- 
tional work as well as the organization 
and administration of the school of the 
church is vitally affected. 

Coincident with the discovery of the 
child’s right to religious education as a 
child, there has come the corresponding 
discovery of the right of adults to receive 
at the hands of the church systematic reli- 
gious education suited to their needs. A 
generation of adults has grown up within 
the membership of the church, many of 
whom have conceptions of the funda- 
mentals of the Christian life which are 
little beyond those of the children them- 
selves. The discovery of this fact has 
Taised a suspicion as to the adequacy of 
If forty 
years’ study of these lessons has produced 


such results, can the church look for any 


different results at the end of another 
forty years? Parents who are face to 
face with the privileges and responsibil- 


ities of parenthood may not be greatly con- 
cerned over LHzekiel’s 
Temple 
May not grow enthusiastic over “Sennach- 
erib’s Invasion of Samaria”; and young 


“Vision of the 


Restored”; burdened laborers 


Men in the period of mental readjustment 
_very likely will have no deep interest in 


the “Building of the Temple.” 
lessons have a proper place. 


Such 
But when 
people are struggling with immediate and 


17 


Adults, Elective Courses for 


urgent problems peculiar to a given 
period, or to a group, or to a particular 
situation, such lessons are as ill-adapted 
to adults as to the unfolding souls of 
infants and children. Official question- 
naires have developed only the conviction 
that the Uniform Lessons are not univer- 
sally applicable to group experiences of 
mature life. 

The emphasis of Christian thought and 
effort is shifting more and more strongly 
to the social duties and obligations of the 
Christian Church. The recent develop- 
ment of thought has been toward the 
recognition of a world-society, a social 
organism consisting of all humanity, an 
all-inclusive social solidarity. Develop- 
ments in the new science of sociology, 
movements for the emancipation of labor 
and the enfranchisement of women, new 
emphasis on the educational opportunities 
of the home, the immense tasks of mis- 
sions and social service, are but a few of 
the changes which have come upon Chris- 
tian thought and life since the system of 
Uniform Lessons was adopted in 1872. 
Christian people have both a right and 
a duty to understand something of all 
these changes in order to interpret them 
from the Christian point of view. It is 
becoming quite generally recognized that 
the main objective of Sunday-school teach- 
ing is not Biblical scholarship, but effi- 
cient Christian character. As the church 
rises to her duty as the public school of 
religion and realizes her responsibility for 
sending intelligent Christian leadership 
into all human associations and relations, 
there will be a widespread demand for a 
comprehensive program of general reli- 
gious education. Urgent need is already 
developed for elective courses of Bible 
study on themes such as the following: 
Christian Parenthood and the Christian 
Home; Missions and Social Service; The 
Growth and History of the Hebrew and 
Christian Scriptures; Social Messages of 
the Prophets and Apostles; Historical 
Bible Study; Biblical Theology for 
Popular Use; Masterpieces in the Liter- 
ature of the Hebrew and Christian Reli- 
gions; Prayers of the Bible—Growth of 
Religious Ideas; Teachings of Jesus— 
Topical Religious Studies; Introductions 
to the Books of the Bible. And other 
courses must be provided to meet positive 
needs of groups of Christians who face 


Advertising 


(See Adult Depart- 
R. P. SHEPHERD. 


particular problems. 
ment. ) 
Reference: 
Wood, I. F. Adult Class Study. 
(Boston, c1911.) 


ADVERTISING THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL.—The first essential to con- 
tinued popular support is that a school 
should be worthy of support. If the 
Sunday school is not good it cannot. hold 
the pupils that it invites; it may not seem 
so clear to some that it is necessary for a 
good school to let people know of it. 
Many need to be educated to appreciate 
a good school just as prospective pur- 
chasers are educated by shrewd salesmen 
to feel their need of a new commodity. 
Great merchants do not think it sufficient 
to put good wares in their stores; with 
infinite skill they spend thousands of 
dollars in bringing people to buy. 

Too often those who pride themselves 
on having good schools have but a faint 
conception of the extent of the constit- 
uency to which they should appeal. They 
have not thought of the adult men in 
their own church, nor of any children 
except the sons and daughters of those 
already connected with the church. And 
this, too, while there are as many chil- 
dren outside the Sunday school as in it, 
and while denominations are reporting a 
decrease of Sunday-school enrollment. 

In the act of advertising the represen- 
tative of the school may be disappointed 
or shocked to find that his appeals are 
so ineffectual, but later he may come to 
see that indifference to his invitation is 
really caused by the incompleteness of 
his own Sunday school. Suppose, for in- 
stance, a man were invited to a Sunday 
school only to find that it had no men’s 
class; or a man whose supreme interest 
is the social movement of the day were 
invited to a Sunday school which never 
departs from the International Uniform 
Lesson. A men’s class, or a class in the 
social teaching of the Bible would be at 
once suggested. (See Social Service and 
the S. S.) 

The increase of membership in the 
Sunday school is one of the crying needs 
of the times. In view of these facts no 
school can be called good which is not 
trying to grow. It is certain that any 
school which is not making itself known 


Advertising 


to new people and, in the effort, modify- 
ing and enlarging its capacities, will soon 
cease to be effective even for its limited 
constituency. The missionary impulse is 
an essential of Christianity and of Chris- 
tian education. (See Missionary Edu- 
cation in the S. 8.) 

Advertising can be successful only as 
it conforms to the fundamental and uni- 
versal laws of the human mind. In other 
words, whether he employs its terminology 
or not, the advertiser must have a usable 
knowledge of psychology. He must un- 
derstand, for instance, ‘the principles of 
apperception and find the point of contact 
between the Sunday school and the boy 
outside of the influences of the church 
whose attention he wants to secure. That 
point of contact may be the Sunday-school 
baseball nine and he will wisely stress 
this feature of the school in some of its 
advertising. 

He knows that the concrete has im- 
measurable advantage over the abstract, 
especially in an appeal to the young or 
immature, and hence he should use cuts in 
advertising, or language that will suggest 
things and people, or perhaps he may 
distribute illustrated § Sunday-school 
papers in the slums of a city. | 

His advertisement will focus attention 
on one point and keep it as long as pos- 
sible in the center of consciousness. He 
should appreciate the “follow-up” prin- 
ciple in advertising and seek to fortify an 
original favorable impression by other 
cumulative data. He should use the laws 
of association and repetition by the habit- 
ual use in his advertising of some signifi- 
cant phrase, such as “The homelike 
school” or “The school that makes char- 
acter.” 

These general psychological principles 
should be applied with due regard to the 
nature of the Sunday school. It is pre- 
eminently a social institution and in ad-— 
vertising it, appeal should be made to 
social motives; it may be shown, for in- 
stance, that the Sunday school elevates the 
community and builds the nation. | 

Motives should be used which will help - 
every Sunday school, and by no means 
should any individualistic or competitive 
suggestions be allowed to weaken other 
schools or deplete their numbers. 2 

The Sunday school is also a dignified - 
institution with a lofty religious pur- 


Hy 


Advertising 


pose and there should be such use of the 

laws of association in advertising as will 
intensify, not nullify, this view of its 
mission. While the ideas suggested 
should be agreeable, cheerful, and attrac- 
tive to old and young alike, there should 
be no triviality or descent to the cheap 
and common jests of the street. 

A campaign of advertising planned and 
prosecuted in accordance with the prin- 
ciples just outlined should result in an 
increase of numbers. Experience has 
shown that no organization is more sensi- 
tive to wise and vigorous promotion than 
the Sunday school. This doubtless is due 
in large measure to the fact that so many 
of its members are young and susceptible 
to new influences. 

But these new pupils are not so many 
mere units to be tabulated, and perhaps 
compared with those in another school, 
but so many more human lives to be 
touched and lifted by every fine and 
strong motive that the school can supply. 
This is the result which is really worth 
striving for. It constitutes an oppor- 
tunity and a challenge which will modify 
and enlarge the capacity of the school 
and make it new every year with increas- 
ing potency for good. 

This process will be hastened by the 
fact that many of the newcomers are 
forces in themselves and can make real 
contributions to the life of the school. 
This will be most happily true if the lead- 
ers in the school are large-minded enough 
to invite those different from themselves. 

Yet again the school will have made 
itself known to the community and to 

neighboring schools for its zeal and en- 

terprise ; it will give them perhaps a new 
idea of what may be accomplished by a 
wise publicity: it will win the respect and 
gratitude of those who grieve for the 
multitude of children unreached by reli- 
gious education. (See Publicity, Meth- 
ods of.) 

The more economic use of the school 
equipment, both human and material, is a 
lesser though equally valuable result. 

The Sunday-school room often will ac- 
commodate three hundred as well as two 
hundred, and the exceptionally capable 
teacher of the men’s class and Junior 
superintendent can lead twice as many as 
they have. The cost of maintaining the 
‘Sunday-school plant for the larger num- 






19 Advertising 


ber is less per capita while at the same 
time the number of contributions is 
greater. This should not be overlooked 
in considering the pecuniary cost of ad- 
vertising. 

The term advertising in the narrower 
sense is applied to some form of printed 
appeal. But it must not be forgotten that 
the most effective efforts to increase a 
Sunday school are made by personal con- 
tact. The printed invitation is best de- 
livered, therefore, by a friend of the 
school, child or man, and supplemented 
by the spoken word. The children 
themselves are excellent advertisers if 
really interested, while the printed matter 
they carry will supply in definite and 
complete form what they are perhaps too 
immature to tell. (See Recruiting the 
S. 8.) 

The telephone has greatly increased the 
number of people who can be reached in 
a personal way. It is possible, however, 
to rely upon it too much. The voice alone 
is frequently an inadequate substitute for 
the actual presence. 

When the personal letter is impractica- 
ble because of the number to whom it is 
desired to appeal, the form letter repro- 
duced by hectograph, multigraph, or other 
device may be used. The impersonal, in- 
discriminating character of such a letter 
may be relieved in various ways. In- 
stead of inviting everybody to a Rally 
Day by one letter, parents may be invited 
by one, members of the Home Depart- 
ment by another, and prospective mem- 
bers of the men’s class by a third, each 
letter being specially adapted to the group 
of people to whom it is addressed. If it 
is possible personally to sign each letter 
and to add with the pen some remark 
appropriate only to the person addressed 
very much of the value of a personal letter 
will be secured. 

Printed advertising matter should not 
merely contain an invitation to come, it 
should give definite facts showing why it 
is worth while to come; such resources of 
the school as complete organization, boys’ 
clubs, reading room, motion picture ma- 
chine, etc., should be mentioned. 

Furthermore, such matter should em- 
phasize what the Sunday school is now 
doing, or is planning for the immediate 
future. It should present the Sunday 
school as dynamic rather than static. 


Advertising 


The idea of action and power is always 
attractive, and especially to the minds of 
the young and the forceful. 

Many Sunday schools emphasize special 
days. The observance of Rally Day has 
done much to advertise the Sunday school. 
The idea of gathering the school together 
to enter upon the work of a new year is 
sound and attractive. The advertising 
may be made yet more attractive if it 
announces a definite program and a spe- 
cific goal for the year to come. 

Too many schools, however, cease their 
advertising and their efforts to get new 
recruits with Rally Day (q. v.). Many 
of the methods and ingenious devices 
which have been developed in connection 
with Rally Day may be followed up and 
reénforced at Christmas (q. v.), at Easter 
(g. v.), and on Children’s Day (q. v.). 

Another strong influence which has 
helped Sunday-school advertising has 
been the growth of men’s classes. The 
virility, enthusiasm, and skill which have 
marked the development of the men’s 
movement in the Sunday school has done 
much for the school as a whole. Many of 
the men who are leading this movement 
are business men, accustomed to the en- 
ergy and resourcefulness of business pro- 
motion, and their methods might well be 
followed in advertising the whole school. 

The Sunday school should share in the 
publicity resources and the publicity 
methods of the church. The church 
calendar, for instance, should have its 
Sunday-school news and announcements. 
The church paper should also. If the 
church has an outdoor bulletin board, or 
if it advertises in the newspapers, the 
Sunday school should not be forgotten. 
A very cursory observation, however, will 
convince any who are interested how very 
far is this ideal from being realized at 
present. Nothing is more common than 
to find church calendars most carefully 
prepared, and prominent church notices 
in the newspapers, without the slightest 
reference to the educational work of the 
church. 

One of the most admirable and at the 
same time one of the most neglected 
methods of advertising the Sunday school 
is through an annual printed report. 
Such a report, if it clearly sets forth the 
achievements of the year just closed may 
be used as a potent argument to ensure 


Advertising 


future attendance. If it contains plans 
and announcements for the coming year, 
together with an inyitation to special 
classes or departments, it may combine 


the qualities both of a report and a pros-. 


pectus. Such a form of publicity follows 
the lines which have been highly de- 
veloped in secular education. 

The cost of advertising will vary with 
circumstances. Much may be saved by 


eliciting the willing service of members 


of the school. Children can distribute 
cards, stenographers can give service in 
reproducing form letters, amateur printers 
can do work for nothing, thus reducing 
the expense of printing to the cost of the 
stock; older pupils, especially those in 
the Senior Department, may prepare 
advertising matter or perhaps edit a 
school paper. Such service apart from 
its money value may be a part of the edu- 
cation afforded by the school, developing 
the young people and adding to the 
esprit de corps of the whole organization. 
Some churches and Sunday schools own 
their own printing equipment and many 
have metal bulletin boards equipped with 
letters for a great variety of announce- 
ments. A small hectograph costing no 
more than a dollar may open a new era to 
the rural school that will use it. 

When printers are employed estimates 
should be secured from several before en- 
gaging any one. Lower figures can be 
secured if it is possible to get the work 
done during the slack season. It is poor 
economy, however, to lower the cost of 
printing by using poor paper or by per- 
mitting poor workmanship. This makes 
the presentation ineffective and defeats 
the whole object of advertising. 

Finally, in considering whether an ex- 
penditure is wise it is important to keep 
in mind the economic gain of using your 
equipment for a larger number and secur- 
ing more contributors. 

I. B. Buresss. 

References: 

Scott, W. D. The Psychology of 

Advertising. (Boston, 1908.) 

Hurlbut, J. L. Organizing and 
Building Up the 
Chapter XVI. (Boston, c1910.) 

Lawrance, Marion. How to Conduct 
a Sunday School. 
York, 1905.) 

Mead, G. W. Modern Methods of 


Sunday School, 


Chapter XI. (New 


~ 


A 


4 


Africa 


‘Sunday School Work. 
(New York, 1903.) 

Reisner, C. F. Church Publicity. 
Chapters XV and XVI. (New York, 
1913.) 

Stelzle, Charles. 
cessful Church Advertising. 
York, 1908.) 

Faris, J.T. ed. The Sunday School 
at Work. Chapter IX, by Jay S. Stow- 
ell. (Philadelphia, 1913.) 


AFRICA.—SrErE SoutH AFrica. 


AGE OF SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 
—SEE CHILD CONVERSION; CRISES IN 
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT; RELIGION, 
THE CHILD’s AND Its CULTURE; 
TEACHER, SPIRITUAL AIM OF THE. 


AGOGA AND AMOMA BIBLE 
CLASSES.—The Agoga is a form of class 
organization in Baptist Sunday schools 
for young men from sixteen to twenty-one 
years. The name stands for “training,” 
the object being to promote practical 
Christian living among young men. The 
motto is “Get another man.” ‘The em- 
blem consists of three letters of the word, 
Agoga, an O inclosing an A, and in turn 
encloses a G. 

Agoga is unique in that no provision is 
made for committees. The work is done 
by officers and their assistants. There are 
nine officers and each of these has charge 
of a department of the work. Each of 
the officers has as many assistants as he 
needs or as the size and the character of 
the class will allow. The officer selects 
his own assistants, in consultation with 
the president, and he is held responsible 
for the work in his department. The plan 
is simple and it secures definite results. 
Agoga has no separate convention and no 
official publication. It does its work 
through existing denominational agencies, 

The author of the plan, is Rev. H. E. 
Tralle, M.A., Th.D. The first class was 
organized March 9, 1905, in the Third 
Baptist Church, St. Louis, Mo. There 
are now hundreds of classes in successful 
operation. In March, 1913, the direction 
of the movement was transferred to the 
American Baptist Publication Society, 
1701 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, and 
the Educational Secretary, Rev. W. E. 
Chalmers, became the general secretary of 
the movement. 


Chapter XI. 


Principles of Suc- 
(New 


Alexander 


Amoma is the name of the correspond- 
ing movement for young women with 
similar organization and plan of work. 
Amoma means “blameless,” and the motto 
is “The Blameless Life.” 

W. E. CHALMERS. 


AIM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.— 
SEE ORGANIZATION, S. S.; RELIGIOUS 
Epucation, AIMS OF; RELIGIous Epu- 
CATION IN THE EarLy CHURCH. 


AIM OF WORSHIP.—Sere Curricv- 
LUM FoR RELIgious INSTRUCTION; WorR- 
SHIP IN THE §. 8. 


AKRON PLAN.—Sert ArcHItTEcTURE, 
S. 8. 


ALBERTA AND SASKATCHEWAN.— 
SEE CanapDa, History oF THE ASssocli- 
ATED S. S. WorK IN THE DOMINION OF. 


ALBRIGHT, JACOB.—Srz EvanceEt- 
IcAL ASSOCIATION, 


ALEXANDER, ARCHIBALD (1772- 
1851).—A_ distinguished Presbyterian 
clergyman and college president. Dr. 
Alexander was born near Lexington, Va. 
His early education was such as the local- 
ity afforded, but the Rev. William Graham 
directed “his classical and _ theological 
studies.” He was converted in the great 
revival of 1789, was licensed to preach in 
1791, and was ordained in 1794. From 
1797 to 1806 Dr. Alexander was president 
of Hampton Sydney College, when he re- 
signed to accept the pastorate of the Third 
Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, Pa. 

After his removal to Philadelphia he 
became deeply impressed with the “reli- 
gious destitution” existing in the suburbs 
of the city. The Sunday school had not 
been generally introduced, but Dr. Alex- 
ander formed a plan to enlist laymen to 
instruct the children of the poor on Sun- 
day evenings, to talk to the parents, and 
to read the Bible. This association was 
active for several years until its work was 
absorbed in the larger plans of the Sunday 
school. He said: “My idea is, that the 
whole church should form one great Sab- 
bath school, and that all the people should 
be disciples or teachers.” 

In 1812 he organized the Theological 
Seminary at Princeton, N. J., and became 


Alleine 


its first professor. As pastor, college 
president, and professor, Dr. Alexander 
wielded a large influence. 
Emity J. FEL. 
Reference: 
Alexander, J. W. The Life of Archi- 


bald Alexander, D.D. (New York, 

1854.) 

ALLEINE, JOSEPH.—Srr Sunpay 
ScHOOLS IN ENGLAND BEFORE ROBERT 
RAIKES. 


ALLIANCE OF HONOR.—The Alli- 
ance is interdenominational and the aims 
are: (1) To band together men and young 
men for the noble purpose of maintaining 
and extending among themselves and 
their fellows a high sense of the advan- 
tages and obligations of purity of life. 

(2) To hold high, in the midst of 
temptations to vice, the nobility and 
honor of a life unsullied by impurity. 

(3) To promote among young men a 
chivalrous regard for the honor of woman. 

(4) To seek that all who join its ranks 
may become of the number who count it 
their greatest honor to be the servants of 
the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Members. It numbers among its mem- 
bers men, or youths above eighteen years 
of age, who desire to work on behalf of 
purity. A minimum subscription of Is. 
is collected annually. 

Associates. Youths above fifteen, and 
under eighteen years of age, who desire 
to work on behalf of purity are received 
as associates. A minimum subscription 
of 6d. is collected annually from associ- 
ates. N. B.—It is expected that each 
member and associate will do his best to 
circulate the booklets issued by the Alli- 
ance, and, where possible, keep in touch 
with the individuals to whom they are 
given. 

Honorary Members. Annual subscrib- 
ers of not less than 5s, are classed as hon- 
orary members. 

Literature is supplied to members 
gratis (a large assortment is constantly 
kept in stock). 

T'welve eventful years have passed since, 
in the providence of God, this “Venture 
of Hope” was launched at a gathering of 
unpretentious dimensions. ‘To-day, the 
mails bring greeting from members in five 
continents. “Come over and help us” is 


Alliance of Honor 


the call from far and near, and it is 
harder to refuse than to respond. Fully 
two millions of men and youths have been 
helpfully influenced, while no fewer than 
45,500 have definitely been enrolled in 
membership. 

For seven years the secretaries and 
helpers labored incessantly with no 
thought of remuneration but that of 
grateful hearts, until the volume of work 
had assumed such vast proportions as to 
render absolutely necessary the provision 
of a permanent staff. 

In its results the movement has already 
exceeded the most sanguine expectations 
of its pioneers. Above all record of grati- 
fying achievement, however, the Direct- 
ors would acknowledge the "guiding and 
controlling hand of God. And in view 
of this fact they look forward with com- 
plete confidence to far greater achieve- 
ments in days to come. 

Nothing short of the “complete corona- 
tion of character” is the goal of the Alli- 
ance. Time and again it has been the 
privilege of the workers to witness the 
gleam of hope in the soul, the birth of 
new desires, the mastery of evil practices 
hitherto dominant, the substitution of a 
life of Christian usefulness for one of cor- 
ruption and despair. 

In this cause there is happily no room 
for the intrusion of sectarianism, and the 
interdenominational character of the Alli- 
ance has been more than justified. 

Impurity has its organized forces which 
must be met by counter organization. 

Too serious a view can hardly be taken 
of the continuous stream of pernicious 
literature which issues from a certain sec- 
tion of the press, partly due to the 
lamentable apathy of the community. 
Libraries, bookstalls, exhibitions, railway 
platforms, mutoscopes, hoardings, post- 
card and print-shops are often centers of 
mind-contamination. Also, despite a 
good deal of vigilance work, official and 
unofficial, audacious productions by stage 
and cinema are constantly making their 
appearance, forming not only a grave 
moral peril to the youth of the land, but 
an indication of a low moral standard in 
our midst. : 

Magazine. The quarterly Record (1d.) 
has now entered upon its fifth volume. 
Not only does it. provide a record of the 
work accomplished, but the aim of the 


‘ 


Amer. Church §. S. Institute 


editors is that each issue may constitute 
another weapon against the devil’s doc- 
trine of “necessity,” and yield inspiration 
for service and brotherly counsel to all 
its readers. In actual practice it is found 
that the magazine forms a very satisfac- 
tory introduction to the subject from one 
to another, and many kindly messages 
from readers have been received. 

The alliance has been warmly welcomed 
by fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, 
clergy, and ministers of all denomina- 
tions, schoolmasters, Sunday-school work- 
ers, Y. M. C. A.’s, Brotherhoods, P. S. A.’s, 
Adult schools and Bible classes, students, 
Boys’ Brigades and Scout movements, 
army, navy, and police, and all who recog- 
nize the grim struggle between the forces 
of impurity and eternal righteousness. 

Some results of the twelve years’ work 
are: 


Branches formed............- 1,120 
Members enrolled............. 45,500 
Meetings attended by......... 240,000 
MIOtS ISSUCH. So... ee 1,200,000 


and it is estimated that considerably over 
one-and-a-half millions of men and youths 
have been helpfully influenced. 

President: Dr. H. Grattan Guinness, 
F. R. G. S. 

Treasurer: Capt F. L. Tottenham. 

Vice-Presidents: Leaders of religious 
activity in all denominations: medical, 
scholastic and other gentlemen. 

All inquiries for particulars and liter- 
ature should be addressed to The Joint 
Alliance of Honour, 112 City Road, Lon- 
don, E. C. “In Confidence: To Boys” 
(Bisseker) sent post free for 24d. 

K. E. BaGNatt. 


AMERICAN CHURCH SUNDAY 
SCHOOL INSTITUTE.—SExE Protestant 
Episcopat CHURCH. 


AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF SACRED 
LITERATURE.—The title is the name by 
which is designated the extension work of 
the University of Chicago in the depart- 
Mments of Biblical history and literature, 
church history, theology, religious edu- 
cation and allied subjects. 

History. In 1881, William Rainey 
Harper, at that time professor of Hebrew 
in the Baptist Theological Seminary at 
Morgan Park, Illinois, conceived the de- 
sire to promote the teaching of Hebrew by 





23 


Amer. Inst. of Sacred Literature 


modern methods. Having prepared text- 
books for this purpose, he launched a cor- 
respondence school of Hebrew, in which 
he secured the codperation of about seventy 
teachers of Hebrew and the Old Testa- 
ment in educational institutions. In its 
first year the student body represented 
forty-four states and eight foreign coun- 
tries, Upon the appointment of Mr. 
Harper to a chair at Yale University, he 
removed the headquarters of the school 
to New Haven, Connecticut. In October, 
1889, in the interests of a wider study of 
the Bible in English, the Institute of 
Hebrew gave place to a new organization 
—The American Institute of Sacred Lit- 
erature. ‘The aim of the Institute was 
defined as follows: “To promote the philo- 
logical, literary, historical, and exegetical 
study of the Scriptures by means of such 
instrumentalities as may be found prac- 
ticable.” The following representative 
men were chosen as directors: President 
EK. Benjamin Andrews, D.D., LL.D., of 
Brown University; Professor Willis J. 
Beecher, D.D., of Auburn Theological 
Seminary; Professor J. Henry Thayer, 
D.D., of Harvard University; Bishop 
John H. Vincent, D.D., LL.D.; Professor 
Charles Rufus Brown, Ph.D., of Newton 
Theological Institution; Professor George 
S. Burroughs, Ph.D., of Amherst College; 
Professor Edward L. Curtis, Ph.D., of 
McCormick Theological Seminary; Pro- 
fessor Milton 8. Terry, D.D., of Garrett 
Biblical Institute; Professor Edward T. 
Bartlett, D.D., of a Protestant Episcopal 
Divinity School; Professor Francis 
Brown, Ph.D., of Union Theological 
Seminary; Professor Marcus D, Buell, 
D.D., of Boston University; Professor 
George B. Stevens, Ph.D., D.D., of Yale 
Divinity School. 

In 1891, on account of the election of 
Professor Harper to the presidency of the 
University of Chicago, the headquarters 
of the Institute were again removed and 
established on the University campus. At 
the same time the Board of Directors in- 
vited to participation in the work of the 


_ Institute as an advisory council seventy 


men from leading universities, the body 
being called “The Council of Seventy.” 
Twenty-three of these were teachers in 
the Old Testament field; twenty in the 
New Testament field, and eighteen in the 
more general work of comparative reli- 


Amer. Inst. of Sacred Literature 


gion, theology, and church history. 
Under the direction of the council, the 
Institute inaugurated a system of popular 
Bible study, which is continued to the 
present time, and offers to thousands of 
people in their own homes, the oppor- 
tunity to study under the direction of 
expert teachers. Shortly before the death 
of President Harper in 1906, the Insti- 
tute which had up to this time been a 
separate corporation, was taken over by 
the University of Chicago, and became a 
part of its extension division, 

Extent of the Work. When the Insti- 
tute began its work it was the only or- 
ganization through which the general 
public might receive constructively the 
results of modern scholarship as they re- 
lated to the Bible. In one decade of its 
history, seventy-five thousand students 
pursued its courses—the largest number 
in any one year being ten thousand. For 
the use of these students, six million 
pages of printed matter were sent out, in 
the form of directions for study and re- 
port. Among these students were repre- 
sentatives of every Protestant denomina- 
tion, as well as Roman Catholics and 
Jews. In geographical distribution they 
represented every state in the Union, 
every division of the western hemisphere, 
every European or Asiatic country of note, 
and included even some students in Africa 
and Australia. 

Financial Support. From the first the 
Institute has carried on an educational 
work far in excess of the income from stu- 
dents’ fees. It has received gifts from 
time to time, but has no adequate endow- 
ment. Except for the income derived 
from a gift of ten thousand dollars from 
Mrs. Caroline Haskell, its work is done 
as an unendowed department of the Uni- 
versity of Chicago in which the possi- 
bilities are limited by the receipts. 

Courses of the Institute. It is the 
policy of the Institute to continually 
create new courses which are particularly 
adapted to current needs. At present 
(1914) there are (1) Ten Outline Bible 
Study courses for elementary work as fol- 
lows: The Foreshadowings of the Christ, 
by W. R. Harper; The Life of Christ, by 
EK. D. Burton; The Founding of the 
Christian Church, by E. D. Burton; The 
Work of the Old Testament Sages, by 
W. R. Harper; The Work of the Old 


Amer. Inst. of Sacred Literature 


Testament Priests, by W. R. Harper; The 
Social and Ethical Teachings of Jesus, by 
Shailer Mathews; The Universal Element 
in the Psalter, by J. M. P. Smith; The 
Book of Job, or the Problem of Human 
Suffering, by W. R. Harper; Four Letters 
of Paul, by E. D. Burton; The Origin and 
Religious Teaching of the Old Testament 
Books, by G. L. Chamberlin. 

Each of these courses covers one school 
year, and provides opportunity for daily 
work, with report and certificate at the 
end of the course. 

(2) Nineteen professional reading 
courses for ministers’ as follows: The 
Historical and Literary Origin of the 
Pentateuch, Old Testament Prophecy, 
The Origin and Growth of the Hebrew 
Psalter, The Life of Jesus the Christ, 
The Apostolic Age, The Problems Con- 
nected with the Gospel of John, Chris- 
tianity and Social Problems, the Prep- 
aration of Sermons, The Teaching of 
Jesus, The History of Israel, The Wis- 
dom Literature, The Teaching of the 
Apostles, The Post-Apostolic Era, The 
Psychology of Religion and Its Bearing 
upon Religious Education, The Expan- 
sion of Christianity in the Twentieth 
Century, Modern Phases of Theological 
Thought, Constructive Theories of 
Modern Scholarship concerning the Bible, 
the Church, and Religion, Jesus in the 
Light of Modern Scholarship, The Effi- 
cient Church. 

These courses are directed through re- 
views prepared by specialists in the sub- 
jects under consideration. 

(3) Rapid survey courses for Sunda 
school teachers as follows: Introduction 
to the Bible for Teachers of Children, 
The Origin and Religious Teaching of 
the Old Testament Books, The Adapta- 
tion of Principles of Psychology and Peda- 
gogy to Sunday-school teaching. 

These are correspondence courses of an 
elementary type, but they give to the pupil 
personal criticism and individual work. 

(4) Thirty-one advanced correspond- 
ence courses in Hebrew, New Testament 
Greek, Biblical theology and literature, 
church history and religious education 
are of University grade, and give uni- 
versity credit under special conditions. 

Traveling Libraries. The Institute cir- 
culates traveling libraries containing 
books required for its professional and 


Amer. Inst. of Social Service 


other reading courses. The demand for 
these libraries is greater than the supply. 
The privilege of the use of the libraries 
has been extended to China, Japan, and 
other foreign countries. 

Official Organ. The Biblical World, 
published by the University of Chicago 
Press, is used as the official organ of the 
American Institute. In it are published 
new courses, and one of the privileges of 
the ministerial courses is the receipt of 
this monthly magazine. 

The Executive Board. Members of the 
faculty of the Divinity school of the Uni- 
versity of Chicago under the chairman- 
ship of Professor Ernest D. Burton, form 
the executive board of the Institute, the 
immediate details being handled by the 
secretary, Miss Georgia L. Chamberlin, 

Grorcia L. CHAMBERLIN. 


AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL 
SERVICE.—This Institute may be de- 
scribed as a clearing house of social in- 
formation, conducting university exten- 
sion work for social education. It was 
organized in 1898, by Dr. Josiah Strong 
and Dr. William H. Tolman, under the 
name of the League for Social Service, 
and incorporated under its present name 
in 1902. The functions of the Institute 
may be said to be three: (1) To gather 
from all possible sources facts of every 
_kind which bear on social and industrial 
betterment. (2) To interpret these facts 
by ascertaining their causes and effects, 
thus gaining their real significance, and 
(3) To disseminate the resulting knowl- 
edge for the education of public opinion, 
which is the generic social reform. 

The Institute has been for several years 
active in furnishing weekly lessons on 
social subjects for Sunday schools, Y. M. 
C. A.’s, and other organizations, and for 
individual students. These lessons ap- 
pear first in The Homiletic Review, and 
then are reprinted, with other articles, by 
specialists in the field of sociology, in The 
Gospel of the Kingdom, a magazine pub- 
lished by the Institute. Classes are now 
organized in many parts of the United 
States and Canada, and have been a very 
great success. They have interested many 
men, and especially workingmen, who 
_were hitherto uninterested in the church, 
or in Christian work. In connection with 

The Homiletic Review it is estimated that 


Amer. Inst. of Social Service 


these “studies in social Christianity” reach 
over 40,000 people. They take up the 
living questions of the day, give in brief 
space the most recent information, ‘and 
discuss what may be done for the solu- 
tion of social problems from the Christian 
point of view, by churches, or by individ- 
uals. The monthly topics for the year 
1913 were: Poverty, Wealth, Socialism, 
Eugenics, Euthenics, The Unfit, Rural 
Communities, The Mormon Menace, The 
Coming Church and Society, Moral Train- 
ing in the Public Schools, The Unem- 
ployed, Peace. For 1914, such subjects 
as: Legislation, Constitutions, Exploiting 
the Child, Dividends versus the Home, 
The Great Fear, Humanitarianism, Work- 
ing our Ideals, etc., have been discussed 
in the pages of The Homiletic Review. 

Another activity of the Institute is the 
sending out of lectures and lecturers. Dr. 
James H. Ecob is the official lecturer for 
the Institute, and addresses churches, 
ecclesiastical bodies, and ministerial asso- 
ciations, making no charge except for his 
expenses. Dr, Strong and Mr, W. D. P. 
Bliss also do some lecturing. The new 
work of sending out reading lectures, illus- 
trated by stereopticon slides, was begun 
in 1912. The work has assumed consider- 
able proportions, popular interest being 
shown by the fact that in the first ten 
weeks 510 lectures were ordered. They 
are now being used in many parts of the 
United States. Copies of these lectures 
may be obtained in New York, Boston, 
Chicago, Seattle, Olympia, San Francisco, 
Los Angeles, and in Canada. They deal 
with the wage question, housing, women 
and children in toil, the amusement prob- 
lem, the battle for health, and the com- 
ing city. 

A third activity of the Institute is to 
answer inquiries which come from many 
countries. Information is sent to min- 
isters, editors, students, social workers 
and others. The Institute also makes 
investigations. 

In the course of its fifteen years of ex- 
istence the Institute has directly or indi- 
rectly inaugurated a number of important 
social movements and activities, includ- 
ing the formation of similar Institutes in 
various countries of Europe, in South 
America, and in Australia. Its agitation 
on the question of industrial accidents led 
to the establishment of a Museum of Se- 


American Pageant Association 


curity in New York, to which Dr. Tolman 
now gives his whole time, having left the 
Institute for this purpose. | 

The Institute has conducted a number 
of important campaigns which have had 
a, wide influence, as in arousing the public 
to forbid a polygamist’s taking a seat in 
Congress. The Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, 
when President, said of the Institute that 
its possibilities for usefulness were well 
nigh boundless, and that it seemed to be 
the beginning of a world movement to 
facilitate the readjustment of social rela- 
tions to new conditions. 

Dr. Josiah Strong is president of the 
Institute, and Mr. W. D. Bliss, editor 
of the Encyclopedia of Social Reform, is 
associate editor of the magazine, and pre- 
pares its illustrated lectures. ‘The Insti- 
tute, whose specialized library and serv- 
ices are free to all comers, is located in 
the Bible House, Astor Place, New York, 
Ney, 

JOSIAH STRONG. 


AMERICAN PAGEANT ASSOCIA- 
TION.—SrEE PAGEANTRY. 


AMERICAN SUNDAY SCHOOL 
UNION.—Srrt Stunpay ScHoot UNION, 
AMERICAN. 


AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.—SeExE 
Tract Society, AMERICAN. 


AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIA- 
TION.—SerEeE UNITARIAN CHURCH. 


AMUSEMENTS AND THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL.—It is customary to use the word 
“amusement” in a somewhat loose sense 
to signify any occupation which is pleasur- 
able and which affords relief from the 
daily routine of life. Strictly speaking, 
a distinction should be made between 
amusement and recreation (gq. v.), the 
former being passive and relaxing in its 
nature, the latter requiring activity and 
the putting forth of energy. 

The discovery which wise Sunday- 
school leaders have made, that it is not 
practicable to separate the religious from 
the other natural elements which make 
up the life of a girl or boy, has led to the 
realization that the Sunday school must 
relate itself to all phases of youthful in- 
terest, and not alone to the spiritual side. 


ail 
i 
a 


Amusements 


That Sunday school which is capable of 
doing the most for its young people is the 
one which recognizes the multiplicity of 
their needs and strives to meet as many of 
them as possible. For this reason, if for 
no other, the amusement question de- 
serves the attention of every Sunday- 
school teacher. 

The craving for amusements, as forms 
of occupation for leisure hours, is wholly 
natural. It is noteworthy that the present 
generation has discarded certain beliefs 
of former years that such desires are sin- 
ful in themselves; but there is danger 
that one may go too far, and lose sight of 
the fact that any normal longing may be 
abused by overindulgence, and thus be- 
come a harmful influence. To frown 
upon, or to ignore, the natural craving for 
amusement is a serious mistake; but to 
recognize it, to regulate it, and to supply 
its demands with normal gratification is 
truly wise because of its important ethical 
and social values. 

One large branch of the Christian 
church attempted to solve the amusement 
problem by an enactment of its official 
body, and specified several forms of amuse- 
ment as positively under the ban. The 
seriousness of this mistake has for years 
been apparent to many minds; and many 
of the accredited delegates at recent 
church meetings would have stricken these 
specific rules from the laws of the church, 
except for the fear that such action might 
be construed as giving unqualified in- 
dorsement of the amusements in question. 

The attitude of the Sunday-school 
teacher in regard to the question of his 
relation to the more common amusements 
of the day is often a perplexing one. The 
real issues may be influenced by prece- 
dent, or discarded because of personal 
prejudices or preferences, but it should 
be possible to reach certain fundamental 
conclusions as a basis for decision. 

1. There are certain forms of amuse- 
ment concerning the wrongfulness of 
which there can be no two reasonable opin- 
ions. In the light of the best and clearest 
information on the subject, emphasized 
also by examples which are within the 
knowledge of every thinking person, the 
use of alcoholic drinks, even in so-called 
moderation, must be placed, without hesi- 
tation, in the list of indulgences which are 
impossible for the Christian teacher. No 


| 


| 
Amusements 


word need be said concerning other forms 

of gross pleasure-seeking which can be 
indulged in only at the expense of the 
purity of the personal life. There is no 
debatable ground in these matters. 

2. There are, however, certain amuse- 
ments which are not in themselves inher- 
ently bad. The shuffle board, bowling 
alley, pool and billiards are in this list. 
These are games of skill which if played 
under right conditions, are wholesome 
games. ‘These have come under suspicion 
because they have become commercialized 
and surrounded by dangerous conditions. 
The environment of these games has oc- 
easioned the most serious criticism of 
them. Social card playing may be in- 
eluded in this list with the added caution 
that with the larger element of chance 
which enters into games of cards there 
comes an increasing risk of danger. 

3. Another class of popular amuse- 
ments of the present day consists of pas- 
times which may, or may not, be sur- 
rounded by an immoral atmosphere, and 
which, within themselves may or may not 
be distinctly harmful. Among these are 
the theater and the dance. For example, 
it is possible for a dance to be held under 
entirely wholesome conditions, and for 
the participants to be morally unharmed; 
on the other hand, it is quite possible for 
people to be vitally injured in a moral 
sense by engaging in a dance which is 
held under surroundings which seem 
wholly satisfactory. That the dance may 
arouse passions which become very diffi- 
cult to control is not questioned by those 
who know, but it is equally true that some 
engage in dancing without such results. 

_ What is true of the dance is equally 
true of the theater. It is unjust to assert 
that it is universally either good or bad. 
An entirely innocent play may be followed 
in the same playhouse a week later by 
something which is unfit to be described. 
There are also plays which are whole- 
30me in the main but which are defective 
in spots. 

_ Under this class the most serious prob- 
lems arise. Some earnest Christians de- 
side questions of this kind by ascertaining 
the general tendency of the amusement 
ander consideration. Is its moral tend- 
sey upward or downward? Examined 
from the standpoint of its tendencies, the 
theater requires much explaining. Not- 


Amusements 


withstanding the number of excellent 
people who patronize plays of the better 
class, no close student can deny that the 
sum total of influence in the case of the 
many of the theatrical presentations of 
the present day is entirely negative. 

Two schools of thought have held place 
and found adherents among equally ear- 
nest and religious people. One group 
would summarily condemn the dance and 
the theater, and have nothing to do with 
either one; the other group considers the 
solution of the problem to be found in 
consistently upholding the good and ad- 
mirable in both dance and theater, while 
denouncing in equal measure their evil 
features and endeavoring to eliminate 
them. The people of this group unhesi- 
tatingly attend the dance and the theater 
when they are given under such condi- 
tions as can meet their conscientious 
approval. 

There should, perhaps, be another 
group, consisting of those who see both 
the good and the evil in these uncertain 
pastimes, but who deprive themselves of 
the pleasures they might enjoy without 
injury to conscience, in order to let their 
influence rest wholly on the side of safety. 
These persons may permit young people 
under their care and guidance to indulge 
in these forms of recreation when pro- 
tected by such restraints as they deem 
wise. 

Sunday-school leaders should be guided 
by certain broad principles: (a) amuse- 
ments which are beyond criticism should 
be provided by the school, and by organ- 
ized groups within the school; (b) it is 
not the province of the school to go into 
vigorous competition with commercial 
amusement enterprises which involve a 
lowering of ideals; (c) constant effort 
should be made to popularize such forms 
of diversion as have within them construc- 
tive tendencies—for instance, a church or 
school might control a skating pond for 
outdoor sport in winter, because of its 
healthful influence; while the same church 
would absolutely refuse to accede to the 
demand for a closed roller-skating rink 
with its cheap music and its doubtful 
companionships. 

Condemnation of existing amusements 
without reasonable substitution is futile; 
however, substitution need not be made 
in kind or in extravagant degree. 


Anti-Saloon League 


The Sunday school which consists very 
largely of pupils from comfortable homes 
and whose social needs are met by partic- 
ipation in the social life of the commu- 
nity may not greatly need to have the 
church become an amusement center. In 
such cases the personal influence of the 
Sunday-school leaders must be used to 
keep the community pastimes upon a high 
plane. 

On the other hand, the school which 
ministers to a boarding-house neighbor- 
hood, or to a community in which real 
home life is lacking, may find its best 
opportunity for service in providing a 
place for social intercourse for the young 
people of the neighborhood. 

No other aim can be substituted for 
the spiritual purpose which is the aim of 
religious education. Under wise leader- 
ship, however, healthy and timely min- 
istrations to the social instincts of young 
people can be made definitely contribu- 
tory to the development of moral char- 
acter. (See Play as a Factor in Reli- 


gious Education.) 
K. C. Foster. 


Reference: 

Findlay, A. F. Amusements. In 
Hastings, James, ed., Hncyclopedia of 
Religion and LHthics, v. 1, p. 400. 
(New York, 1908.) 


ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE.—Sez TeEm- 
PERANCE TEACHING IN THE S. S. 


APPERCEPTION.—SerErE INTEREST AND 
EDUCATION. 


APPLICATION OF RELIGIOUS 
TEACHING.—In the educative process 
the principle of “application” requires 
that knowledge should become adjusted 
by means of expression; 7. e., through ac- 
tion and practice in order to establish 
habit. 

According to Herbart (q. v.), the teach- 
ing process consists of five steps: prepara- 
tion, or finding the point of contact with 
the pupil; presentation of the lesson mate- 
rial; association, or making the material 
clear by means of illustrations; general- 
ization, working up to the central truth 
or lesson to be enforced; and, finally, the 
application. Without this last step the 
lesson is a mere intellectual exercise. In 





Architecture, S. §, 


the Sunday school the application is the 
chief reason that the lesson needs to be 
taught at all, because the aim of the Sun- 
day school is action. The training is all 
for habit. E 

Jesus in his teaching illustrates the 
method more perfectly than any one else. 
Whenever he taught, it was with the sole 
object of compelling action. He would 
teach the lawyer, and he begins by finding 
the point of contact. “What is written in 
the law?” In answering the lawyer him- 
self presents the lesson. Then Jesus illus- 
trates by the parable of the good Samar- 
itan after which he makes the lawyer give 
the generalization: one’s neighbor is the 
one upon whom he has compassion, and 
then sharp and clear the application 
comes: “Go, and do thou likewise.” 

Every lesson should end in this way. 
The teacher who lets the superintendent’s 
bell sound before he has clearly made his 
application, has lost his hour’s work. 
Every lesson must be brought home in 
personal terms. “Thou art the man,” is 
the most effective ending that can be 
given to any lesson. The teacher is not 
there to make the lesson an interesting 
story, or a scholarly array of facts, or a 
striking display of picturesque material: 
he is there first to make his pupils under- 
stand it, and then to translate it into the 
terms of their actual living: “this do and 
thou shalt live.” (See Contact, Point of; 
Illustration; Moral Practice.) 

F. L. Parrer, 
References; 


McMurry, C. A., and McMurry, 
F. M. The Method of the Recitation. 
Chap. IX. (New York, 1911c1897.) 

Monroe, Paul, ed. A Cyclopedia of 
Education, vol. 1. Application. 


ARBEITER RING.—Sere Socrarist 
SuNDAY SCHOOLS. 


ARCHITECTURE, SUNDAY-SCHOOL.— 


Outline 
I. Introduction. 
II. History of Sunday-school Architect- 
ure. 
1. Previous to Akron Plan. 
2. The Akron Plan. 
3. Weakness of the Akron Plan. 
4, Inadequacy of the Akron Plan for 
Graded Lessons. 


Fee eS 


Architecture, S. S. 


Ill. An Ideal Sunday-school Building 
for Graded Lessons. 

A. Exterior Architecture. 

B. Interior Architecture. 

1. Principles of Construction. 
2. Departments. 
(a) Beginners’ Department. 
(b) Primary Department. 
(c) Junior Department. 
(d) Intermediate Department. 
(e) Senior Department. 
(f) Adult Department. 
3. Provision for General Assembly. 
4, Classrooms. 
5. Classroom Requirements by De- 
partments, 
6. Special Rooms. 
%. Social Features. 
8. Sundry General Suggestions. 
IV. Modern Church Plans. 

1. The Village or Country Church. 

2. Temple Church, Minneapolis. 

3. Some Kramer Plans. 

(a) Plan “A.” 
(b) Plan “B,” First Christian 
Church, Norfolk, Virginia. 
(c) Plan “C,” First Christian 
Church, Athens, Georgia. 
(d) Plan “D,” M. E. Church, 
South, Conway, Arkansas. 
4, San Diego (Cal.) Baptist Church. 
5. Winnetka (Illinois) Congregational 
Church. 
6. St. Paul’s M. E. Church, Cedar 
Rapids, Iowa. 
V. Remodeling Old Church Buildings. 

VI. Interrelation of Church and Sunday- 
school Architectural Requirements. 
VII. Bibliography. 

I, Introduction. Sunday-school archi- 
tecture is treated in this article as distinct 
from ecclesiastical architecture. There 
will be no discussion of the traditional 
forms of either exterior or interior ar- 
chitecture. The guiding principle will be 
efficiency. The religious, educational, and 
social needs of the church, especially of 
its children and young people, will be re- 
_ garded as primary. The time is rapidly 
_ passing when this viewpoint must be justi- 
fied. The child indeed has been put in 
the midst and we are beginning to build 
our churches as though the child were 
present in life. The type of future mem- 
_ bers of our churches is determined in the 
Sunday school of to-day. The leisure 
hours of our young people are often a 


Architecture, S, S. 


determinative factor in character develop- 
ment. The Sunday school is not to be 
regarded as merely an addendum to the 
church but rather as an integral part of 
the church’s activity, one of most impor- 
tant services to the community. Later 
paragraphs will enlarge upon the prin- 
ciples laid down in this section. 

II. History of Sunday-school Archi- 
tecture. 1. Previous to the Akron Plan. 
In the early days of the modern Sunday- 
school movement, the sessions of the 
schools were held in private houses and 
outside of the church buildings. The 
early New England day school was essen- 
tially a religious school in which the Bible 
reading and exposition, and prayer were 
a considerable part of the curriculum. 
When the churches in America took over 
the Sunday-school movement and gave it 
a place in the regular activities of the 
local organizations, they reluctantly pro- 
vided for it a home in the large bare 
audience rooms with their straight-back 
pews. Before 1860 most of the Sunday- 
school work was conducted in these one- 
room church buildings or sometimes in 
the basement of large buildings, except in 
the mission fields of the western states. 
The absence of a building has never pre- 
vented the organization of a Sunday 
school. In thousands of cases, the private 
home, the village or country school house, 
or the village hall has housed the begin- 
nings of the local Sunday school. 

2. The Akron Plan. With the growth 
of the Sunday-school movement and the 
attachment of respectability to it through 
its adoption by some of the church’s far- 
sighted leaders, there developed a demand 
for better housing. At first, in the more 
able churches, simply a large room was 
added, then one or two smaller additional 
rooms. The inception of the Akron plan 
was the first important attempt to make 
the house respond to the needs of the Sun- 
day school. 

Lewis Miller, a lay Sunday-school 
worker in Canton and later in Akron, 
Ohio, designed the type of building which 
is known as the Akron plan, so named be- 
cause it was first built in Akron, Ohio. 
After extensive correspondence with the 
Sunday-school workers of the sixties, Mr. 
Miller took a rough draft of his plan to 
Jacob Snyder, an Akron architect. Mr. 
Blythe, a Cleveland architect, was called 


Architecture, S. S. 


into consultation, the final result being 
the plan from: which the First Methodist 
Church of Akron, Ohio, was built in 1867. 
Bishop J. H. Vincent (q. v.) furnished 
the definition of an ideal Sunday-school 
room which was incarnated in the Akron 
structure: “Provide for togetherness and 
separateness; have a room in which the 
whole school can be brought together in a 
moment for simultaneous exercises, and 
with the minimum of movement be di- 
vided into' classes for uninterrupted class 
work,” 

The cut (fig. 1) will show at a glance 
the features of the original Akron church 
which was the forerunner of the type 


Fia. 1 





















alii 
I qass (PO Fra 


ii 
“Wi 
ii 











MAIN FLOOR 
ORIGINAL AKRON PLAN 
G. W. Kramer, Architect, New York City 


which more than any other during the 
last forty years, has been reproduced in 
the nonritual churches all over the world. 
The pupils are gathered in numerous class- 
rooms arranged in an approximate semi- 
circle about the superintendent’s desk. 
Another row of rooms in the balcony adds 
greatly to the number of classrooms. 
The seats in the balcony are often ar- 
ranged on steps, each row higher than the 
one in front of it. 

With the adoption of the Uniform Les- 
sons in 1872, the Akron plan rapidly at- 


Architecture, S. §, 


tained popularity. Part of the Uniform 
Lesson plan presupposed a review, from 
the superintendent’s platform, of the les. 
son which had been studied previously by 
the classes of all ages. The plan provided 
for “togetherness” in that all could see 
and hear the superintendent and be 
directed by him in the opening and clos- 
ing exercises. This plan provided for a 
larger degree of “separateness” than had 
been regarded as possible before. The 
side walls of the classrooms were plas- 
tered usually and curtains hung at the 
front. In later years flexible partitions 
were used instead of curtains, more effec- 
tively shutting out sound. The great 
majority of all Sunday-school buildings 
before 1910 used the Akron plan in some 
form. | 

3. Weakness of the Akron Plan. Diffi- 
culties, however, arose in its use. It did 
not prove to be the ideal plan which en- 
thusiastic Sunday-school workers declared 
it to be. The many plastered divisions 
created problems of discipline that seri- 
ously interfered with the efficiency of wor- 
ship. The worship of God is a social act, 
and the numerous small groups shut off 
from each other in the classrooms could 
not join in as helpful worship as in the 
open room and all in sight of one another, 
To be sure modified plans sought to over- 
come this difficulty by providing open 
balcony seats in front of the small rooms, 
but this only partially solved the difficulty. 
As long as the superintendent was thought 
to be the most important personage in the 
Sunday school there was a certain advan- 
tage in the readiness with which the whole 
school could be thrown together. But ob- 
serving students of the Sunday school dis- 
covered that in all schools some portions 
of the organization suffered from the “to- 
getherness” idea. The “separateness” 
plan was not altogether a success either, 
for strange-shaped, poorly lighted and 
ventilated rooms often were built. Also 
frequently these did not afford the unin- 
terruptel class hour that was rightly re- 
garded as the ideal, because of the phys- 
ical conditions of the rooms, the open 
front, or the flimsy type of partition in 
use. | 
With the development of more peda- 
gogical methods in instructing the chil- 
dren the teachers of the pupils of the Be- 
ginners’ and Primary departments de- 


a 
i 


: 
‘ 
ti 


Nt 


) 


) 


Architecture, S. S. 


-manded entire separation. It came only 


slowly and reluctantly, but it was inevi- 
table. From 1890 on the better buildings 
show separate rooms for these little ones. 
The Chicago World’s Fair Sunday School 


Building, (approximately similar to Fig- 


ure 7) designed by George W. Kramer, 
New York City, was prophetic in that 
provision was made for separateness for 
other departments of the school as well. 

4. Inadequacy of the Akron Plan for 
the Graded Lessons. When the Interna- 
tional Convention in 1909 adopted the 
principle of graded lessons and directed 
the Committee to proceed to the prepara- 
tion of a completely graded system, the 
problem of Sunday-school architecture be- 
came acute. As the schools adopted the 
Graded Lessons the inadequacy of the 
Akron plan became’more and more mani- 
fest. ‘The Graded Lessons demand sep- 
aration of both departments and classes, 
and the various classes within the de- 
partment use different lesson material. 
The time-honored lesson review of the 
superintendent has no place, for, within 
the completely graded school, more than 
a dozen different courses are used at 
the same time. The weakness of the plan 
is just as apparent with the new graded 
lessons as with the uniform lessons, Gen- 
eral assembly becomes secondary to effi- 
cient departmental assembly and _ class- 
room work, ‘There has been great activ- 
ity among architects since 1909 and much 
progress has been made toward a build- 
ing type which will be efficient for the 
Graded Lessons. The illustrations offered 
in connection with this article indicate 
all the ideas of significance that have 
hitherto been incorporated in modern 
Sunday-school buildings. But first let us 
approach seriously a statement of the 
character of an ideal Sunday-school build- 
ing for a fully graded school. 

III. An Ideal Sunday-school Building 
for Graded Lessons. The attempt will be 
made in this section to gather together 
into a careful statement the fundamental 
features of a building which will incor- 
porate all that is necessary or desirable 
to make possible a modern Sunday school. 
In determining the presence or absence 
of a given feature the test of efficiency will 
be observed. Naturally every detail may 
not be desirable in every individual school, 
for the schools are widely different, vary- 


Architecture, S. S. 


ing in size, differing in location, and with 
varied types of pupils. Most of the sug- 
gestions will be available for the school 
above three hundred in membership, while 
by the principle of adaptation, schools of 
any size will find here ideals and practical 
aids to the largest achievement. The 
International plan for departments and 
grades will be used. 

A. Exterior Architecture. The purpose 
for which the Sunday school exists can be 
served best by a substantial, dignified, and 
beautiful exterior. If beautiful architec- 
ture can be justified at all it must be 
used in the buildings which house the 
religious educational facilities for our 
growing young people. The church build- 
ing should, in a sense, incorporate in 
itself some of the great thoughts for which 
religion stands. The church building is 
a reflection of the value which its builders 
place upon religion and worship. It there- 
fore should be durable in construction, 
with simple exterior plan and notable ab- 
sence of flimsy ornament. That construc- 
tion material which is genuine, rather 
than that which is veneer or showy in 
character, is to be preferred. The lines of 
the church building should suggest 
strength and repose, dignity and rever- 
ence. ‘Thus the unconscious impression 
of the building in which the Sunday- 
school interests of the church are housed 
will serve that for which the Sunday 
school exists, It will take a courageous 
committee to withstand the temptation to 
make a large, showy exterior. The min- 
istry of art in giving refinement and pro- 
portion to our church buildings is an un- 
doubted influence for religious education. 
While these considerations are usually 
given due attention in our larger and 
more pretentious buildings they are often 
forgotten in our humbler churches, which 
nevertheless perform the same function in 
the lives of our people. Attention should 
be called also to the necessity of surround- 
ing our church buildings with artistic and 
well-kept grounds. Many otherwise beau- 
tiful buildings give a poor impression be- 
cause of the wrong and improper treat- 
ment of the grounds, The buildings are 
placed too near the street, or face the 
street in a wrong direction. The vertical 
surface of the side of the building should 
be blended with the horizontal surface of 
the ground by judicious planting of shrub- 


Architecture, S. §. 


bery or vines. The landscape architect 
can often render great service to the com- 
mittee just completing a new church and 
Sunday-school building. Too much at- 
tention cannot be given to the impression 
made upon boys and girls by the buildings 
and grounds with which is associated their 
religious education. 

B. Intertor Architecture. 1. Principles 
of Construction. It is in the arrangement 
of the interior of the Sunday-school build- 
ing that its efficiency as an educational 
building is determined. Before describ- 
ing in detail the interior architecture it 
will be advisable to lay down certain prin- 
ciples for our guidance. (a) Although 
the teaching function of the church is 
regarded as of primary importance in this 
article, the building must be adaptable 
to other needs of the church as represented 
in other organizations and activities than 
those of the Sunday school. Any other 
attitude would be selfish and contrary to 
the spirit which should dominate the erec- 
tion of a church building. A later para- 
graph will discuss this matter in detail. 
(b) Those principles of dignity and beauty 
which have been related to the exterior 
will be used in the interior, The impor- 
tance of environment for the development 
of the spirit of worship is recognized. 
(c) The needs of each department will 
be determined and housing planned ac- 
cordingly. (d) The housing of the indi- 
vidual class will be regarded as of prime 
importance. (e) The building will be 
related vitally not only to the religious 
educational needs of the Sunday school’s 
members but also to their social life. (f) 
Facilities for worship must be planned for 
the whole school, divided into the units 
demanded by the best results of psycholog- 
ical study. 

2. Departments, Departmental needs 
will be discussed under the following 
heads: Beginners’, Primary, Junior, In- 
termediate, Senior, Adult. Access to any 
of these departments must be direct from 
halls and not through other departments. 
The classroom facilities for each depart- 
ment will be discussed in detail in the fol- 
lowing section. At the present writing it 
is very clear that absolutely separate rooms 
must be provided for the first three de- 
partments. The method of combining 
these departments into a large assembly 
room by the use of temporary partitions 


a4 


| 


Architecture, 8.8. | 


of any kind must be abandoned and per- 
fect freedom from disturbance by those 


in nearby departments must be accorded | 


each of these departments. Each of these 
three departments ministers to a distinct 
epoch in the life of the child or youth. 
If a given department does not do its full 
work, all later departments will suffer in 
their efficiency; or stated in more serious 
language the religious life of the boys and 
girls in the departments not properly pro- 
vided for will suffer beyond recovery. 

(a) Beginners’ Department. No move- 
ment in modern education has better vin- 
dicated its right to be than the kinder- 
garten. The religious significance of the 
work for the smaller children is well recog- 
nized by educators. The Beginners’ De- 
partment (q. v.), in the Sunday school 
then, should have every facility for its 
work. It would be foolish policy indeed to 
limit the efficiency of the educational work 
at its very foundation. How permanent 
can we expect the superstructure to be 
when it is placed upon an inadequate 
foundation? The social experience of the 
child of the beginners’ age is limited very 
largely to the home. The room used for 
their religious education should therefore 
partake as largely as possible of ‘ideal 
homelike conditions. The ideal Beginners’ 
room will be flooded with sunshine and 
good cheer, and amply provided with 
fresh air, The young child in a new en- 
vironment will be fearful if the place is 
gloomy. The department will be on the 
ground floor with the fewest possible 
steps. Even two or three steps should be 


eliminated, when direct outside entrance 


is possible, by the use of an easy rubber- 
covered incline. The ceiling of the ideal 
department for Beginners’ will be low and 
studded. Care will be taken that the 
room is not unduly large. 
ment needs little more room than for 
the circle of chairs and the kindergarten 
tables. The visitors should have an in- 
conspicuous place at the backs of the chil- 
dren; possibly if the school is large and 
visitors are present often, in an alcove 


The depart- 


built a step above the room. The pictures” 


used to decorate this room should be hung 
low, near to the line of vision of the chil- 
dren. A burlap dado is useful to fasten 
lesson pictures close to the eye of the 
children. The floor will be more home- 
like if covered with a rug. If bare floors 


ersten 2 ao 


Architecture, S. S. 


are used the legs of the little chairs should 
be covered with rubber tips. The black- 
board is desirable, either built into 
place or movable. ‘The children can do 
their work best, if seated on small chairs 
at standard kindergarten tables. Thought- 
fulness for the teachers dictates ample 
locker and cabinet space so that all lesson 
material may be stored in order, and may 
be quickly found when needed. The lack 
of this simple requirement often has inter- 
fered with efficient work. The ideal 
ealls for a cloak room; a closet with low 
toilet for children; and a screen near 
the entrance to the room to prevent undue 
disturbance from those entering during 
the exercises. Other suggestions for this 
department may be found in the examina- 
tion of modern kindergarten departments 
in our better public schools. 


33 


Architecture, 8. S. 


entering directly into other departments. 
Where the Primary and Beginners’ De- 
partments are located in close contiguity, 
a cloak room may, with advantage, be 
placed between them. The mothers’ room, 
to which reference is made later, may be 
located between them. The Primary De- 
partment (qg. v.) room should be large 
enough to permit of division into three 
rooms by means of accordeon doors or 
other device. ‘This will permit each grade 
to have a room by itself for the class hour. 
Should this not be practicable a com- 
promise may be made by having two 
smaller classrooms opening from the 
main primary room. All that has been 
said in the paragraph on the Beginners’ 
Department concerning sunshine, height 
of ceiling, placing of pictures, tables, and 
chairs, is applicable here. The tables 


Fic. 2 


CLASS 
] -ROCM - 


°° CLASS - 
‘ROOM : 





a Hie be cat 
EP -—| 


VISITORS i 
] el 


| 
i 


i ce 
PRINARY unre 


- CLASS - 
—oeOM.« 


- CIRCLE - RCOM > 


Hi 


lj 
1UuM 





PRIMARY DEPARTMENT 
METHODIST CHURCH, LONG BEACH, CAL. 


'N. F. Marsh, Architect, Los Angeles, Cal. 


(b) Primary Department. This de- 
tictment should have a room entirely its 
own and entirely separated from other de- 
partments by permanent walls, It should 

have access to the rest of the school by 
means of halls, not by means of doors 


should be of a height that will enable the 
pupils to work with comfort. The chairs 
should enable the children to sit with their 
feet easily reaching the floor. Figure 2 
gives the floor plan of the Long Beach 
(Cal.) Methodist Primary Department 


Architecture, $. 8. 


which has many admirable features. Note 
the provision for children’s toilet, visit- 
ors, separate classrooms, and soft over- 
head light. The Plymouth Church, Min- 
neapolis, has a department for grades one 
to four which is thus described by the 
superintendent of the school in the Au- 
gust, 1910, Religious Education. Floor 
plans were not obtainable. “The Junior 
Department includes the Kindergarten 
class and the first four grades, and for 
this section of the school the Junior or 
Children’s room was designed. Accessible 
through a large double door, it is a room 
30 x 34 feet in size. In one corner is 
a door which leads to a safe iron fire es- 
cape. The room is lighted by eight 
Gothic windows. The wood work is a soft 
brown toned oak, the walls painted in flat 
color to harmonize with the panelings. A 
good yellow-brown carpet covers the floor, 
simple net curtains soften the light which 
comes through the many diamond panes 
of clear glass. The room is furnished 
with one hundred and twenty specially 
designed little Gothic chairs in the same 
soft brown color.” A unique feature of 
this room is the generous use of the best 
art in its decoration. A beautiful fire- 
place is central in its design and has 
carved on it as a bas-relief, “Suffer the 
little children to come unto Me.” On the 
wainscoting of three sides of the room are 
installed brown carbon prints of the life 
of Jesus. Opening from this room are 
enough classrooms to allow each grade 
to withdraw to its own room, leaving the 
larger room for the Beginners’ circle. 

(c) Junior Department. Some of the 
most important work in the Sunday school 
is done during the four years of the pupil’s 
work in this department. More study may 
be expected and more information is ab- 
sorbed by the pupils during this period 
than in any other to which the Sunday 
school ministers. A separate departmental 
room is absolutely essential in which wor- 
ship can be conducted without disturbing 
other departments or being disturbed by 
them. The same suggestions made earlier 
concerning cloak rooms may be used in 
this case to insure sound-proof partitions. 
This department room should be capable 
of division into four separate grade rooms 
by removable partitions. Experts vary 
as to the separation of the sexes for class 
work in this department. The author of 


| 


Architecture, S. §. 


this article regards the separation of boys — 


' 
; 
| 


and girls as desirable for class work in. 


this department. 


In this case the pro-. 


vision of four additional classrooms open- | 


ing from this departmental room would 
be ideal. 
first suggested, screens may separate the 
classes in the same room. These classes 
will be seated at tables about three by 
seven feet in size, the teacher seated at 
the middle of one side of the table. 
Where a provision is made for a geography 
room it should be located in convenient 
relation to the higher grades of the Junior 
Department. See a later paragraph for 
a description of this room. Blackboards 
should be available for each class in this 
department, and maps for the upper 
classes according as they have geography 
in the public schools. The Junior De- 
partment is a busy work room, having no 
special provision for visitors. This de- 
partment needs every facility for worship 
and for grade instruction, and in the 
larger schools, for separation into indi- 
vidual classes not exceeding ten pupils 
each. (See Junior Department.) 
(d) Intermediate Department. The 
architectural requirements for the Inter- 
mediate and Senior Departments vary 
with the size of the school. With the 
average school the Intermediate and 
Senior Departments will probably meet 
together for worship, also including adult 
members of the school. In this case there 
will be required a room of: adequate size 
for the assembly with a sufficient number 
of classrooms of varying size adjacent. 
The assembly room may also be divided 
into several classrooms. Not every grade 
of the International system will be always 
represented in these departments. It will 
be better to group a larger number with a 
fine teacher than break up these depart- 
ments into numerous small classes which 
will lack the essential quality of enthusi- 
asm. ‘There is developing a considerable 
sentiment for boys’ and girls’ depart- 
ments from the intermediate age on. 
Where this is desired, adequate architec- 
tural provision can be made in a manner 
similar to that recommended for the 
Junior Department. An illustration of 
just such a division will be shown later. 
(See Fig. 8.) The larger school will have 


Where the divisions are made as 


the Intermediate Department .as a unit 
and also the Senior Department meeting 


Architecture, S. S. 


separately, though the two may worship 


together, the boys and girls meeting sep- 
arately for class work, each of these de- 
partments being capable of use for meet- 
ings together or of being broken up into 
classes. The assembly room of the Inter- 
mediate Department could be broken by 
noise-proof partition into two rooms, one 
for each sex for departmental meetings. 
Close to this assembly room the class- 
rooms should be located. The use of the 
church auditorium for the worship of the 
Intermediate, Senior, and Adult depart- 
ments is recommended where the school 
is not too large. This would give a beau- 
tiful churchly room for the worship of 
these groups and would obviate the neces- 
sity of building a second auditorium for 
this special purpose. A later section will 
indicate more in detail the character of 
the classrooms. (See Intermediate De- 


_ partment. ) 


(e) Senior Department. The needs of 
this department have been covered prac- 
tically in the foregoing paragraph. The 
unit is the classroom of the type sug- 
gested in the section on that important 
subject. The classes will tend to become 


larger in size in this department, hence 


larger classrooms for organized classes 
will be required. (See Senior Depart- 
ment.) 


(f) Adult Department. The worship 


provision for the members of this depart- 


ment will either be in the united session 


of the upper departments referred to in 


foregoing paragraphs or in the regular 
service of worship of the church, which 


is the logical time for adult members of 
the school. In that case adult classes may 


meet in their own classrooms a half-hour 
later than the rest of the school if the 
session precedes the morning worship of 
the church. Large cheerful rooms com- 


_ fortably seated, provided with blackboards 


_ tions for adult classes. 


inbuilt and a nest of maps of Biblical 
lands will provide adequate accommoda- 
These rooms may 


_be thrown together by means of folding 


_ parlor for general social occasions, 


doors and thus make the large church 
(See 
Adult Department.) 

3. Provision for General Assembly. 
The question may arise, “Is no provision 


to be made for a large Sunday-school 


- auditorium ?” 


The answer is, that such 


_ provision must undoubtedly be made for 


Architecture, 8S. 8. 


occasional special days. The modern 
graded school will not meet in general 
session, all departments participating, 
oftener than perhaps.a half dozen times a 
year. It would be unwise indeed to pro- 
vide a special auditorium for such a few 
occasions. ‘The church auditorium is very 
evidently the place for such general ses- 
sions of the Sunday school, which is 
simply the church busy at its teaching 
function. Such a plan has been adopted 
by a number of churches, notably the St. 
Paul’s M. E. Church of Cedar Rapids. 
(See Figure 13 and paragraph descriptive 
of this church.) The space for a second 
Sunday-school auditorium is very valu- 
able for the increased number of class- 
rooms which the graded instruction re- 
quires. 

4, Classrooms. 'The classroom is the 
unit of architecture for the graded school. 
The teacher is the important personage 
whose class of whatever age must be given 
adequate provision. In general an ideal 
classroom may be described as a rec- 


‘tangular, plastered room, with outdoor 


light and good air. This room will have 
entrance by but one door to a hall, not 
connected with a neighboring classroom, 
except by the hall. Wall space will be 
sufficient for all equipment, including 
blackboard and maps necessary for the 
conduct of the class. A cabinet will be in 
place in which the class supplies can be 
kept. The floor space will be sufficient 
for a large table about which the class will 
sit, or in the case of high-school classes 
desk chairs may be substituted. Upon 
the walls will be hung beautiful art re- 
productions suitable to the age using 
the room and appropriate to the lesson 
material studied. Clearly this is an ideal 
situation which in many cases will of 
necessity be approximated: rather than 
fully realized. But it is well to know the 
ideal; often it will be found not more im- 
possible of realization than unpedagogical 
construction. 

5. Classrooms by Departments. In 
the Beginners’ and Primary Departments 
separate rooms for a portion of the mem- 
bership are desirable in some degree but 
not so essential as in later years. Screens, 
curtains, and folding doors will frequently 
give such degree of privacy and freedom 
from disturbance as will give efficient serv- 
ice. The larger the departments the more 


Architecture, S. S. 


provision should be made for some addi- 
tional classrooms for these departments, 
but in the average school such provisions 
as are suggested in the previous section 
may be regarded as adequate. 

The Junior Department, however, pre- 
sents a different problem. Discipline 
must take a different form. Outside in- 
terruptions must be shut out in every way 
possible. The author regards separate 
classrooms as pedagogically valuable for 
this department or for the upper classes 
in it. Use screens and curtains if better 
means are not possible. Shut these Junior 
classes away from outside noises and 
sights, and efficiency will be greatly in- 
creased. A much larger number may be 
handled in a class when a quiet class- 
room is provided. The classrooms for the 
Junior Department, when provided, 
should have large tables of proper height, 
comfortable chairs, blackboard, suitable 
pictures, and, in the upper grades, maps 
of Palestine. 

It is in the Intermediate Department 
that the classroom is of the utmost im- 
portance. Answering to the general re- 
quirements of the ideal classroom it may 
also become the club room for the social 
life of this class during the week. Its 
decoration may be made a matter of class 
interest under the direction of the teacher. 
Knowing that sixty per cent of all the 
pupils who leave the Sunday school do so 
during the ages which this department 
includes, what should we not do to make 
the Sunday-school life of these unstable 
youth of the utmost attraction ? 

All that has been said concerning the 
classroom requirements of the Interme- 
diate is true also of the Senior Depart- 
ment. These young people will very soon 
be active in many of the church organiza- 
tions. Let them have every encourage- 
ment. Make the church the most attrac- 
tive place in the community life to them. 
(See section 7% on “Institutional Fea- 
tures.”) Churches wishing to improve 
present buildings by providing better class- 
room facilities will find several helpful 
suggestions on “Remodeling Old Build- 
ings” in section V. 

A word here about different methods of 
making classrooms, Curtains are better 
than nothing but should not be planned 
in a new building. In one of the recent 
notable Sunday school buildings from the 


Architecture, §. §. 


standpoint of expenditure, twelve hundred 
dollars was expended for curtains and 
brass rods to make sixteen classrooms! 
But a few hundred dollars more would 


have given a much superior form of sepa- 


ration of classes. Screens are good to 
separate classes from passing people, but 
are not to be regarded as efficient in shut- 
ting out noises. Accordeon doors when 
tightly fitted, or flexible doors, similar to 
a roller top desk, are good. Architects are 
using a door consisting of a frame covered 
with heavy canvas on either side and in- 
closing an air space. This door or parti- 
tion is said to be very effective. Consult 
your architect about these details. No- 
thing will fully take the place of the plas- 
tered wall and the closely fitted door. 

6. Special Rooms. There are a num- 
ber of special rooms, several of which 
should have place in every progressive 
Sunday-school building. The director or 
superintendent should have an office sit- 
uated in a position convenient to the ac- 
tivities of the school and easily accessible 
to the public on week-days, especially 
when the director is a salaried official and 
keeps regular hours. The teachers should 
have a room to which they may come at 
any time for study. It should have facil- 
ities for keeping books, a comfortable 
table, and good light for reading. It 
should be large enough for the weekly or 
monthly meetings of the teachers. It 
might profitably be en suite with the mu- 
seum, nursery, and exhibit room, and the 
geography room to which reference is 
made below. 

The museum, missionary, and exhibit 
room serves a three-fold purpose, for 
within its walls should be brought to- 
gether every object which will help to 
illuminate the Bible which is essentially 
an oriental book, objects which will help 
the pupils of the school to understand the 
activities of missionaries, and lastly, an 
exhibit of the work of the pupils of the 
various grades, The knowledge that their 


work, if of sufficiently good quality, may 


be exhibited will be a legitimate incentive 
to many. 


The geography room is in line with the 


tendency in our best schools to depart- 


mental methods in teaching a difficult 
subject. This room will be equipped gen- 
erously with the best maps, topographical 
maps, globe, sand-trays, work table, etc., 


=~ 


Architecture, S. S. 


and will be in charge of an experu in geog- 
raphy teaching. Classes of various 
grades, especially those of the late Junior 
and early Intermediate ages, will get in 
this room the special geographical knowl- 
edge which will enable them to pursue 
their regular courses intelligently. (See 
Handwork in the S. 8.) 


Fic. 3 


bet 


@ 


37 





Architecture, S. §. 


The mothers’ room situated close to the 
Beginners’ and Primary Departments has 
been found to serve a good purpose. This 
room can be made of additional value by 
equipment as a classroom in child-life 
for the mothers who wish to be near their 
children. 


7. Special Features. This is not the 


BASEMENT PLAN 
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, LAKEWOOD, OHIO 
Badgley & Nicklas, Architects, Cleveland, Ohio 





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CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, LAKEWOOD, OHIO 
Badgley & Nicklas, Architects, Cleveland, Ohio 


The secretary and librarian should have 
good rooms with convenient facilities and 
ample cabinet space for supplies. In the 
largest schools all of the equipment may 
well be kept back of a counter which will 
enable the secretary and librarian to meet 
all needs in an orderly manner. 


place to justify the presence of social fea- 
tures in the modern Sunday-school build- 
ing. (See Educational Function of the 
S. S.; Organization, 8. 8.; Sunday School 
History, Middle Period of.) As long as 
there exists such a close interrelation be- 
tween moral life and actions and healthy 


Architecture, S. S. 


bodies there will be some place for the 
gymnasium and play-room. (See Play as 
a Factor in Religious Education.) As 
long as boys and girls like social life it 
will be found somewhere, either on the 
street corners, the public amusement 
parks, or in the wholesome environment 
of our church buildings under competent 
and sympathetic oversight. As long as 
selfish private interests find a profit in 
commercializing the amusement life of 
our young people there should be a place 
for the high grade motion picture enter- 
tainment in our church buildings. (See 
Moving Pictures in the 8. 8.) Buildings 
are not as “sacred” as precious souls of 
boys and girls. The principle involved is, 
Do the young people of the community 
need amusement, social life, club life, 
physical activity? Increasingly the an- 
swer will be “Yes,” and _ progressive 
churches will find a splendid service in 
responding to these needs. (See Amuse- 
ments and the 8. 8.) Close observation 
of the Y. M. C. A. construction will be 
of great value. The hall for entertain- 
ments, usually built on the ground floor, 
can also be constructed with a sufficiently 
high ceiling to be used as a play gym- 
‘nasium., (See Gymnasiums, Church.) 
Do not stock this room with the full gym- 
nastic apparatus. Emphasize the play 
features. Numerous games will give 
recreation and good exercise. Make the 
floor as large as possible up to 60 x 80 
and avoid posts and other obstructions. 
It is absolutely essential to provide shower 
baths and lockers where an exercise floor 
is made available. A fire-proof room for 
the motion picture apparatus can be built 
at one end, of the gymnasium. (See 
Stereopticon, Use of the.) The other end 
should be provided with a stage for 
dramas, etc. (See Dramatization, The 
Use of, in Teaching.) Additional tem- 
porary classrooms may be arranged in this 
room by means of curtains. The class- 
rooms can be readily used for club and 
reading room purposes. Some of the 
larger classrooms of the Sunday-school 
building should be furnished as home- 
like parlors where the young people can 
entertain and have delightful social life 
either under the auspices of the Sunday 
school or Young People’s societies where 
these organizations are active. 

There are shown in Figure 3 the base- 


. | 
| 


Architecture, 8. 8. } 


ment and ground floor plans of the Laie | 
wood, Ohio, Congregational Church 
which have much to commend them to. 
prospective builders of churches using the 
social features. Note the height of the 
gymnasium extending through two floors 
with balcony for spectators, the provision 
of locker rooms and showers; the bowling 
alley. The ground floor plan shows an 
excellent method of separating two depart- | 
ments of the Sunday school, also a club 
room well separated from the rest of the | 
building with a convenient entrance, 
Figure 4 illustrates the facilities of 
Plymouth Center, Oakland, California, for 
meeting the social needs of the young 
people of its membership. It is referred . 
to at this point because of its institutional | 
equipment. The plans largely explain | 
themselves. The annotated sketches which 
the pastor, Rev. Albert W. Palmer, has 
kindly sent to the author show that the 
Sunday-school classes occupy all of these 
rooms during their study period. ‘The | 
Junior Department (grades four to eight) - 
meets in the gymnasium. Large doors 


opening all about this room form class | 


alcoves. During the week the doors are 

closed against the wall, leaving the room | 
free for gymnasium and social purposes. 
Note the provision for the varied needs of 
boys and girls, young men and young 
women. ‘Girls and women have exclusive 

use of the gymnasium on stated after- 
noons and evenings. The building cost 

about $25,000 and is separate from the 
church structure. 

8. Sundry General Suggestions. The 
basement is not the proper place for the 
Sunday school and if its use can possibly 
be avoided efforts should be made to do 
so. A ground floor with full size windows 
is very desirable. This will enable little 
children to enter their departments with 
few or no steps. If a basement must be 
utilized put the men’s classrooms there. 
What true father would consign his chil- 
dren to the basement while he and the 
mother chose the sunny, cheerful rooms 
for themselves! It seems absurd, yet one 
of the best plans for a new building that 
has come to the writer’s desk shows pre- 
cisely that situation ; down the dark stairs 
for the little children, and a very large 
east and south room on the ground floor 
for the “men’s class.” It is better to use 
leaded clear glass in Sunday-school class 


4 


4 


Architecture, S. S. 39 
rooms than deep colored glass. Keep the 
rooms bright and cheerful. The com- 
petent architect will provide good ven- 
tilation and light for every place where 
people are asked to remain for any length 
of time. There are technical standards in 
these respects which should be observed. 


Fia. 


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Courtesy of A. W. Palmer 


_ (See Hygiene.) Care should be taken 
_ that halls are ample and well-lighted, that 
stairs should have an easy tread ‘and 
should in no case be of a winding char- 
acter with narrower foot-boards at one 
_ side than the other. Hand rails are desir- 
_ able, in some cases, with a second rail for 
small children, Adequate sanitary drink- 


Entrarce | 


PLYMOUTH CENTER, OAKLAND, CAL. 


Architecture, S. S. 


ing water supply should be provided. 
Convenient cloak rooms adjacent to each 
department are desirable in which um- 
brella drips will be installed. All de- 
partments and classrooms should be 
reached from halls and not through other 
rooms. Main entrances to rooms where 


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worship is planned should be from the 
rear. Provisions against panic from fire 
should be made. At least two staircases 
built of fire-proof material should be avail- 
able from upper floors. It is not too much 
to require either fire-proof stairs or fire 
escapes on all school buildings three sto- 
ries or over. ‘Toilets should be conven- 


Architecture, S. S. 


iently located on main halls, not in dark 
basement corners. Those for the two sexes 
should not be located adjacent to each 
other or on the same hall. Ample cabinet 
provision should be made in every class- 
room. Is it too much to ask that fres- 
coings should be restful in character? 
The good colors do not cost more than 
those which are harmful. Red and blue 
will of course be avoided. Soft tones of 
brown and green are most desirable. 
Better trust the competent architect in 


Architecture, S. §, | 


this plan will show that separate assembly 
will be possible for Beginners’ and Pri- 
mary, Junior, Intermediate, Senior, and | 
Adult. For a school of approximately 
150, separate classrooms will be provided 
for all of the classes of the Junior and 
Intermediate departments, on the basis 
of combining two grades in one class in 
each case. ‘This is more desirable than 
attempting a fully graded plan with only 
four or five pupils in a class. The Pri- 
mary Department would have an excellent 


Fia. 5 


eG 


- AUDITORIUM - 


BAPTIST CHURCH, 


H. W. Jones, Architect, Minneapolis, Minn. 


this matter than to take a vote of the com- 
mittee ! 

IV. Modern Church Plans. 1. The 
Village or Country Church. The ideals 
suggested in this article are not entirely 
Impossible for the village or country 
church. Not everything is required for 
the smaller group of people to which the 
church ministers. Figure 5 gives the 
floor plans of the Western (Nebraska) 
Baptist Church altered by the courtesy of 
the architect to meet more fully the needs 
of the graded lessons. An examination of 


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room. Senior and Adult classes would 
meet in the corners of the auditorium 
which would be used for the worship serv- 
ice of the school from the Junior Depart- 
ment up. The chapel room would be 
found excellent for the social life. The 
number of classrooms could be doubled 
by building a second story of them on 
each side with stairways from the vesti- 
bules. This church can be built for a 
modest sum varying with the material 
used. Inquiry from the architect will 
give the information desired. 


| 


Architecture, S. S. 


2. Temple Church, Minneapolis. Fig- 


ure 6 illustrates another type of medium 
_eost church which provides an equipment 
that will relate itself very well to the de- 


mands of the Graded Lessons and social 


work. Note on the ground floor depart- 


mental rooms for the Primary and Junior 
Departments. What is denominated the 


“Sunday-school room” in the plan will 


serve for general assembly of the Inter- 


mediate, Senior, and Adult Departments. 


41 





Architecture, S. S. 


more churches and Sunday-school build- 
ings than perhaps, any other living archi- 
tect. His latest work is therefore worthy 
of careful consideration. Mr. Kramer has 
always been an enthusiastic supporter of 
the Akron plan and did much to develop 
it during the years of the International 
Uniform Lesson ascendancy. He also 
shows in all of his work the thought of 
“togetherness” referred to in the para- 
graph on the Akron plan. By the cour- 


TEMPLE BAPTIST CHURCH, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN, 


H. W. Jones, Architect, Minneapolis, Minn. 


Ten classrooms will aid in providing 


‘quiet for the lesson hour. 


Curtains or 
flexible doors would divide the main room 


effectively at the line of posts. The gym- 


nasium provides excellent floor space for 


play and entertainment and special boys’ 
‘department, if desired. The main audi- 


torium would provide ideal assembly for 
worship should the space on the ground 
floor be needed for additional classrooms 
or departmental space. 

3. Some Kramer Plans. Mr. George 
W. Kramer of New York City has planned 


tesy of this busy man we are enabled to 
examine four of his latest plans, in all 
of which he had in mind the graded lesson 
system. 

(a) Plan “A,’ There are shown in 
Figure 7 the basement and main floor 
plans of one of Mr. Kramer’s recent plans. 
Departments only are separated, the 
grades in this building being handled as 
groups. Nor is any provision made for sex 
separation in any department. Excellent 
provision is made for Beginners’ and Pri- 
mary departments with a mothers’ room 


Fia. 7, Plan “A” 


Fra. 7, Plan ‘‘A”’ 







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G. W. Kramer, 
Architect, 
New York City 


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G. W. Kramer, 
Architect, 
New York City 


Architecture, §S. S. 


and toilet near at hand. The Junior, In- 
termediate, and Senior departments may 
be united for worship. No classroom pro- 
visions are indicated and in this respect 
the plan would not be regarded as reflect- 
ing the latest thought for a properly 
graded school, In matters like these, 


43 Architecture, §. S. 


rooms. The basement plan shows a large 
room with excellent facilities for enter- 
tainment and gymnasium purposes. 

(b) Plan “B” (Figure 8) is a com- 
plete Sunday-school building for the 
First Christian Church, Norfolk, Vir- 
ginia, planned for 800-1000 pupils. The 


Fia. 8, Plan ‘‘B’’- 





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MAIN FLOOR 
FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH, NORFOLK, VA. 


G. W. Kramer, Architect, New York City 


however, the architect is not to be blamed. 
Often his dealings are with church build- 
ing committees whose only knowledge of 
the needs of the Sunday school are hazy 
memories of their own childhood! Mr. 
-Kramer’s later plans will indicate his 
sense of the importance of individual class- 


clear markings will indicate the divisions. 
The grade markings do not follow the In- 
ternational plan which does not give a 
grade number to the Beginners. The de- 
partments are well segregated and pro- 
vision is made for general assembly in 
what is now the auditorium of the church. 


Fic. 8, Plan “B” 


SECOND FLOOR PLAN 
FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH, NORFOLK, VA. 


G. W. Kramer, Architect, New York City 


















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BASEMENT PLAN 


FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH, ATHENS, GA 


G. W. Kramer, Architect, New York City 





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Fia. 9, Plan “C’” 


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MAIN FLOOR 
FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH, ATHENS, GA. 
3. W. Kramer, Architect, New York City 


Fia. 9, Plan “‘C” 





SECOND FLOOR PLAN 
FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH, ATHENS, GA, 
t. W. Kramer, Architect, New York City 


Architecture, S. S. 


Note the sex segregation in the Senior 
Department classrooms which are in- 
stalled under a deep balcony. Additional 
classrooms are provided adjacent to the 


46 


Primary Department which is on the, 


second floor. The third floor plan not 
printed herewith shows the deep gallery 
and two large rooms for classes or social 
life. 

(c) Plan “C” (Figure 9) is a favorite 
type of plan with Mr. Kramer. The Sun- 


Architecture, S, £ 


tional classes, probably by means of cur) 
tains, in the gymnasium. | 

(d) Plan “D” (Figure 10) was built b. 
Mr. Kramer for the M. E. Church, Sout’ 
of Conway, Arkansas, and is regarded b 
him as “one of the best types of arrange 
ment for a departmental school.” Th 
plan combines all in two groups for wor 
ship, segregates the Beginners’ Depart 
ment, arranges for assembly of Junior an 
Primary if desired, provides for separa 


Fig. 10, Plan “D” 

























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MAIN FLOOR PLAN 


M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH, CONWAY, ARK, 


G. W. Kramer & Son, Architects, New York City 


day-school room can be combined with the 
church proper to enlarge the auditorium. 
The plan was constructed for the First 
Christian Church, Athens, Georgia, which 
uses the merger or combination. service. 
‘The Beginners’ and Primary departments 
have separate rooms in a light basement. 
Other departments use the classrooms in- 
dicated in the drawings. The basement 
shows excellent equipment for institu- 
tional work. Note the provision for addi- 


tion of both grades and sexes in the Inte! 
mediate and Senior departments. Th 
diagonal lines between departments ind 
cate sound-proof movable doors. Th 
whole school can be thrown together int 
two sections in a moment by raisin 
these doors. The Akron plan is used t 
provide classrooms in some of the depar' 
ments. In this plan entrance to all th 
classrooms is from an outer passag 
which is also an insulation against noise 


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Fia. 10, Plan “‘D” 





Fia. 10, Plan “D” 





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SECOND FLOOR PLAN 
M, E, CHURCH, SOUTH, CONWAY, ARK. 
THIRD FLOOR PLAN 


G. W. Kramer & Son, Architects, New York Cit 
; “4 M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH, CONWAY, ARK, 
G W Kramar & San Architanta Now Vark Cite, : As 


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Architecture, S. S. 48 


and heat, but at the same time provides 
ample light and ventilation. Note in all 
of Mr. Kramer’s plans the ample provision 
he makes for convenient exits and easy 
passage from department to department. 
4, San Diego Baptist Church. This 
church (Figure 11) providing for a mem- 
bership of about 1,500, and a Sunday 
school of half that number, has some fea- 
tures worthy of careful examination. The 
ground floor has excellent provision for 
Beginners’ and Primary Departments, 
with separation by hallway from the 
Junior Department. Classes in the latter 


ba 


Architecture, §, §, 


this article it promises to lend itself in 
many ways to modern Sunday-school 
work, 

5. Winnetka (Illinots) Congregational 
Church. (Figure 12.) At this writing 
this church is doing one of the most not- 
able pieces of religious educational work 
in America. The plans show only a recent 
addition to the equipment of the church. 
The Primary and Junior departments 
have bright, home-like rooms in the orig- 
inal building, using tables and modern 
equipment of every kind. The high-school 
classes meet in their club rooms. The 


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BAPTIST CHURCH, SAN DIEGO, CAL. 


N. F. Marsh, Architect, Los Angeles, Cal. 


will meet about the tables which will be 
protected in part from neighboring classes 
by long screens. The social hall is pro- 
vided with motion picture apparatus and 
will seat comfortably about six hundred. 
A good feature is the teachers’ room, ar- 
ranged close to the kitchen so that a 
supper can be served easily. The Sun- 
day-school assembly room proper is merged 
into the main auditorium on occasion. 
Assembly is provided for the Intermediate 
and Senior Departments in this room. 
Additional classrooms are provided for 
large organized bodies. While this building 
had not been completed at the writing of 


Winnetka church is demonstrating the 
possibility of making the church ba 
a community center. Although a subur 

of only four thousand people about 4 
hundred thousand dollars have been in- 
vested in the splendid equipment for social 
work. A large gymnasium gives ample 
opportunity for play and serious work. 
The various club rooms give a place to 
which the boys may come, in which their 
interests are centered week-days as well 
as on Sundays. The gymnasium 1s 
equipped with an excellent stage and with 
moving picture apparatus. A strict cen- 
sorship insures to the people of Winnetka 





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Architecture, S. S. 


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Architecture, 8. §. 


is planned in the church auditorium. 
Separate plastered classrooms are pro- 
vided for every class in the school, except 
in the Junior Department where remov- 
able partitions are used. Unusually wide 
corridors provide for social life and the 
delay which may occur when the Sunday- 
school and church services approach one 
another, A beautiful chapel provides for 
devotional meetings, An assembly room 
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SECOND STORY PLAN 
8T. PAUL’S M, E. CHURCH, CEDAR RAPIDS, IA. 
W. C. Jones, Architect, Chicago, Ill. 


6. St. Paul’s M. EH. Church, Cedar 
Rapids, Iowa. (Figure 13.) This plan 
is presented last because it is regarded by 
the author and many others as probably 
the most significant contribution to the 
architecture of the modern Sunday school 
made to the present time. It is worthy 
of the most careful study of any prospect- 
ive church builders. It was born of a 
longing to make more adequate provision 
for the ages when youths most rapidly 
leave the church. With the exception of 
the Beginners’ and Primary, and perhaps 
the Junior Departments, worship for all 


with gallery for seventy-five spectators, 
will provide for the play life of the youth. 
While the building has not yet been tested 
and the experience of the church is not 
available as yet, it is difficult to see what 
serious problems will arise in the use of 
the building which may not be adjusted 
satisfactorily. This plan promises to in- 
fluence future Sunday-school construc- 
tion in a marked degree. Its enthusiastic 
authors call it the “Cedar Rapids plan” 
and predict that it will have the vogue in 
the next quarter century which the 
“Akron plan” enjoyed in the last twenty- 


Architecture, S. 8S. 


five years. An interesting variation of 
this plan is that of the First Christian 
Church, also of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 
(Badgley and Nicklas, Cleveland, Ohio, 
Architects). The general plan is similar 
but all departments may also meet as 
units, folding doors being used between 
the classrooms. The luxury of a separate 
classroom, insuring quiet and no inter- 
ruption, probably will be regarded as of 
more value than departmental meetings 
which can be arranged in the “Cedar 
Rapids plan” in the other parts of the 
building. Two of the most progressive 
Sunday-school buildings are thus located 
in the same city. 

V. Remodeling Old Church Buildings. 
. It frequently occurs in the history of the 
growing church that the Sunday school 
crowds its quarters. In some cases, espe- 
cially in country and village churches, 
the building is little more than one large 
bare room. The building may be substan- 
tial in construction or the congregation 
unable to rebuild to satisfy the modern 
demands. What can be done? Obviously 
each problem of this type is individual, not 
permitting of a general answer. How- 
ever, certain suggestions can be made 
which will help in making over the old 
structure into something more modern. 
The study of the best plans, such as have 
appeared in this article, will indicate the 
type of building which is desirable. The 
competent church architect will be able 
to accomplish much more than perhaps 
seems possible. Does the old church have 
a high and dry basement? This may pro- 
vide a quiet room for the Beginners’ and 
Primary by means of plastered walls, 
while six to a dozen classes may have good 
rooms by means of the more temporary 
curtains on wires, or brass rods, or the 
more permanent rolling partition. (See 
Figure 14.) Where sufficient money is 
available for an addition it is usually ad- 
visable to use the funds for the Sunday- 
school quarters, for the modern demands 
are relatively so complicated that it would 
be better to build a new, rather than to 
attempt to alter an old, church building 
into Sunday-school quarters. There is 
usually a lack of light which will require 
new windows. In such instances more 
can be accomplished by building the Sun- 
day-school portion new. When this is the 
case ideas and suggestions will come from 


’ “s 4 
Ay 
u 


Architecture, S. §. 





the late plans offered herewith. For in- 
stance, see how effectively a modern build- 
ing can be realized by adopting the “Cedar 
Rapids plan,” using the church auditorium 
for worship and adding classroom facil- 
ities. The same principle can be adopted 
in the smallest church. The writer re- 
cently saw in California a church altera- 
tion costing about a thousand dollars 
which had transformed the Sunday school 
from a one-room organization to a three 
department school with three additional 
classrooms. The membership of the 
school was about a hundred and graded 
work was being used in part. In a large 
city school where the problem of class- 
rooms had become acute, a neighboring 


Fia. 14 





G. W. Kramer, Architect 


flat building was rented and gave them 
unexpectedly efficient quarters for they 
added about twenty-five separate class- 
rooms. <A covered sidewalk to the church 
made the building a constituent part of 
the Sunday-school plant. Do not regard 
it as impossible to improve greatly your 
present building. Even in the case of 
the single room country church with no 
basement it is possible by means of cur- 
tains to add greatly to the efficiency of 
the school, while one rolling partition © 
will give a Primary Department which 
will enable the teachers to do infinitely 
better work. The cost of curtaining a ~ 





Architecture, S. S. 


half dozen classes and putting a rolling 
partition or folding doors across the build- 
ing for the Primary Department, need 
not exceed a hundred dollars. ‘This 
method will leave the building intact for 
other purposes. A way can be found when 
the need is realized. 

There recently came to the writer’s desk 
two proposed alterations of a more ambi- 
tious character in which efficient use was 
made of the present buildings and at the 
same time modern equipment was pro- 
vided for the Sunday school. In each 
ease a large saving over new construction 
was effected. In Plan “A” the old build- 
ing consisted of an audience room with a 
single room Sunday-school room in the 
rear. ‘The old Sunday-school room was 
used for the Junior Department and a 
portion for Senior classes. The new con- 
struction was two stories, basement floor 
and first floor. On the first floor were 
provided parlors, dining room, and 
kitchen, which were also used as class- 
rooms. ‘The Primary and Kindergarten 
departments were provided with adequate 
rooms while the Intermediate Department 
had splendid quarters with six good class- 
rooms. On the high basement floor were 
planned a 40 x 40 gymnasium, swimming 
pool, lockers, bowling alleys, and club 
room. What a transformation from a 
two-room, old-style church! In Plan 
“B” a substantial one-room church with 
a basement Sunday-school room was trans- 
formed in this fashion. A two-story and 
basement addition was planned. ‘The 
basement plan provides for a dining and 
entertainment room, check and_ locker 
rooms, and a 30 x 50 gymnasium in the 
new part. ‘The first floor provides for 
Kindergarten and Primary Departments 
and a parlor, all three capable of being 
thrown together for social purposes. The 
Junior Department has an excellent as- 
sembly and four classrooms. The second 
floor provides nine class and club rooms. 
_A delighted people will move into their 
new church, for such it will be with the 
_ splendid additions to their equipment. 
Plans “A” and “B” were sent to the writer 
by courtesy of Harry W. Jones, the church 
architect, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Con- 
sultation with a competent church archi- 
_ tect will often reveal possibilities of im- 
provement not realized by the layman. 

VI. Interrelation of Church and Sun- 


Architecture, §. S. 


day-school Architectural Needs. An ex- 
amination of the plans and descriptions 
preceding will show that while the Sun- 
day school often has been apparently the 
primary thought yet other church needs 
have been amply cared for. What better 
use can be made of the church parlor, for 
example, than by making a cheerful room 
for the children of the Primary and Be- 
ginners’ departments? (Figure 5.) The 
gymnasium and entertainment room will 
be found available for the occasional 
dinners of other church organizations. 
(Figure 13.) The secondary auditorium 
or one of the departmental rooms will 
serve admirably as chapel. Classrooms 
respond to the needs of committee meet- 
ings. Every club will have ample quar- 
ters in the classrooms. (Figure 12.) 
The possible clash between Sunday-school 
and morning worship when the same audi- 
torium is used can be avoided by Sunday- 
school worship being held at the begin- 
ning of the Sunday-school hour with final 
dismission to the classes and no return to 
the church auditorium. (Figure 13.) 
Dismission of the Sunday-school groups 
directly from their classes without closing 
exercises is a proven success and gives to 
the individual teacher the opportunity for 
the last impression. Five to seven min- 
utes of lost time for reassembly is also 
saved to the lesson. 

It is refreshing to learn occasionally 
of a church building committee seeking 
honestly and sympathetically to learn the 
real needs of the Sunday school, and 
recognizing that the future church will 
be recruited largely from that organiza- 
tion. Erecting a modern Sunday-school 
and church building is one of the most 
complicated tasks the architect is called 
upon to undertake, for the transition sit- 
uation in the Sunday school makes dif- 
ficult the satisfaction of every need present 
and future. Many a building constructed 
within the last four or five years fails to 
show a suggestion of attempted response 
to the needs of the modern graded Sun- 
day school. And in many cases the fail- 
ure lies at the feet of the church building 
committee which did not include in its 
membership representatives of the Sun- 
day school or those acquainted with its 
needs. Despite the radical demands of 
the new Sunday-school building every de- 
partment of the church activity can have 


Architecture, S. S. 


as good or better facilities for its work 
as in the older type of building. Perhaps 
one of the chief matters of adjustment 
will be the favorite plan of using the Sun- 
day-school quarters for an extension of 
the normal audience room. This plan 
will not be popular in the future. Care- 
ful study of many cases has shown that 
the added seating capacity is rarely used, 
hence there is no valid reason in those 
cases, that Sunday-school facilities shall 
be sacrificed to the desire for an enlarged 
auditorium two or three times a year. It 
is questionable whether a thoroughly ef- 
fective modern Sunday-school building 
can be constructed and at the same time 
the space be available for added seating 
capacity for the church auditorium. A 
new church costing $100,000 recently ex- 
amined by the author is not less than 
forty per cent inefficient for Sunday- 
school purposes because the minister 
insisted on using the Sunday-school room 
to make an additional capacity of 400 for 
his audience room, Another church, cost- 
ing over $150,000, advertised as the most 
modern church in its section, extends the 
steep church auditorium gallery about 
the Sunday-school room and uses the same 
style pews in the Sunday school as in the 
church proper. And the Sunday school 
burdened itself through a period of years 
to pay thousands of dollars toward the 
building! Whenever a church gains the 
vision of efficiency in religious education 
and provision for the leisure hours of its 
youth, there will be no difficulty in con- 
structing a Sunday-school building which 
will be truly efficient. 
: H. F, Evans. 


References: 

There are very few references which are 
modern and helpful. The references to 
the Religious Education Association pro- 
ceedings and to the Religious Hducation 
magazine will be found useful. Mr. 
Stoughton’s chapter referred to below will 
be found suggestive, especially to an Epis- 
copalian reader. The one recent volume 
on Sunday-school architecture is that of 
Marion Lawrance, Housing the Sunday 
School, This volume, however, still clings 
to the Akron plan which this article has 
shown to be inadequate and irresponsive 
to the needs of the graded school. Mr. 
Lawrance has in mind more the older type 
of school using the Uniform Lessons, with 


Architecture, §. 8. 


Jao assembly of pupils of all ages. 
here will be found much that is sug- 
gestive in the volume in that it shows the 
types of architecture in use up to about 
1908. Mr. Lawrance’s own plan will re- 
ward careful examination. References 
will be found below to the manuals of sey- 
eral architects who have given much time 
to church architecture. 

Ballinger, W. F., and Perrot, E. G. 
Specifications to be Observed . . . for 
the Erection of a Sunday-School Addt 
tion to Church Edifice Located . . . 
an the . . . City of Philadelphia. 
(Philadelphia, 1904.) 

Blackall, C. H. Architecture and the 
Sunday School. Religious Education 
[Magazine]. June, 1910. 

Byne, A. G The First Baptist 
Church, Pittsburgh, Pa. Architectural 
Record, v. 32, pp. 193-208.  (Sep- 
tember, 1912.) 

Cady, J. ©. The Educational Value 
of Church Architecture and Decoration. 
Religious Education Association Pro- 
ceedings. (1904, pp. 477-482.) 

Cottrell, C. H. Description of the 
New Building. (Christian Science 
Church.) Architectural Record, v. 15, 
pp. 165-171. (February, 1904.) 

Cope, H. F. Efficiency in the Sun- 
day School, pp. 80-90. (New York, 
c1912.) 

Cope, H. F. Modern Sunday School 
in Principle and Practice, pp. 86-94. 
(New York, c1907.) 

Cram, R. A. Church Building, pp. 
42, 70, etc. (Boston, 1901.) 

Cram, R. A. The Treatment of 
Church Interiors. Religious Educa- 
tion Association Proceedings. 19085, 
pp. 403-406. 


Dewey, H. P. The Plan of a Work- ~ 


ing Church. Independent, v. 69: pp. 
1026-1030. (November 10, 1910.) 

Fergusson, E. M. The Proper Hous- 
ing of the Sunday School. Religious 
Education (Magazine). June, 1910. 

Jones, H. W. Church Architecture. 
(Minneapolis, Minn., 1912.) 

Kidder, F. KE. Churches and Chapels, 
pp.-45-52. Hd. 4 rev. and enl. (New 
York, 1910.) 

Kramer, G. W. The Twentieth Cen- 
tury Church . . . Containing Designs 
and Plans of Modern Churches, 


Architecture, S. S., Great Britain 


Chapels, and Sunday School Buildings. 
(New York, 1910.) 

Lawrance, Marion. Housing the 
Sunday School; or a Practical Study of 
Sunday School Buildings. (Philadel- 
phia, 1911.) 

Martin, W. W. Manual of Ecclesias- 
tical Architecture. Chapt. X. Cincin- 
nati, 1897.) 

Maskall, H. P. Hints on Building a 
Church. (Milwaukee, Wis., 1906.) 

Osgood, S. J. Churches. (Grand 
Rapids, Mich., 1893.) 

Pray, J. S. The Treatment of 
Church Exteriors. Religious Education 

_ Association Proceedings, 1905, pp. 
407-411. 

Schippel, Albert. Schippel’s Church 
Buildings. (Mankato, Minn., 1908.) 

Stoughton, C. W. Housing the 
Church School. In Smith, W. W. 
The Sunday-School of To-day, Chap- 
ters II and ITI. (New York, 1911.) 

Ungewitter, G@.G. Country and City 
Churches. (New York.) — 

Vail, M. H. Church Plans and De- 
signs. (Dixon, Ill., 1905.) 

Vail, M. H. Designs and Plans for 
Churches. (Dixon, Ill., 1908.) 

Vail, M. H. Protestant Church 
Plans and Designs. (Dixon, IIL, 
1911.) 

Valk, Modern Church Edifice and 
Its Plan. (New York.) 


ARCHITECTURE, SUNDAY SCHOOL, 
GREAT BRITAIN.—Sunday-school work 
in Great Britain has suffered greatly in 
the past and still suffers from inadequate 
premises. The majority of the schools 
are housed in buildings that were erected 
before the modern ideals obtained. The 
types of accommodation may be classified 


- under: 


1. Large rooms beneath the audito- 
rium with occasional vestry accommo- 
dation, the infant class being herded 


together on a stepped gallery in a 


small room with no regard to cubic air 


_ space. 


2. Premises used for day schools in 
ech the day school furniture is a fix- 

Te. 

3. More modern schools built largely 
on what is known as the “American” 
plan, viz.: the central hall with class- 
rooms on three sides, sometimes with a 


Architecture, 8. S., Great Britain 


gallery, and an upper series of classrooms 
opening thereon. 

4, The latest type built for graded pur- 
poses. 

This type is becoming prevalent all over 
the country. The main difficulty lies with 
the architects who will not study the 
problem, and who consider it is still their 
duty to give one large hall for public 
functions, tea-meetings and _ bazaars. 
Happily a few prominent architects are 
now specializing in Sunday-school build- 


ing. 

The Sunday School Union has pub- 
lished an excellent little book (price one 
shilling) consisting of diagrams and de- 
scriptive matter setting forth the require- 
ments of the modern graded school. This 
book has been of great benefit in giving 
suggestions to those who intend to build. 

The Wesleyan Methodist Sunday 
School Department (gq. v.) has taken up 
the question of Sunday-school architecture 
even more seriously. It has published a 
book (price five shillings) containing 
block plans for schools with varying ac- 
commodation from the small village 
school, that has also to serve as a place for 
adult worship, to the large town school 
where the average attendance will reach 
1,000. From the village school upward 
the principle of grading is strictly ob- 
served. 

The ecclesiastical machinery of the 
Wesleyan Methodist Church enables some 
pressure to be brought to bear upon those 
who intend to erect school premises; and 
by an order of its Conference all plans 
now have to be submitted to the Sunday 
School Department that suggestions may 
be offered ere it be too late. 

The type of school-building most in 
favor is a two-story semicircular building 
with an annex on either side; the Senior 
and Intermediate schools occupying the 
main halls which have classrooms on the 
outer circle so arranged that the hall and 
each classroom are visible from the plat- 
form, the Primary Department and the 
Junior school each occupying an annex. 

Probably, the best schools will be found 
in East Lancashire and West Yorkshire. 
In these districts the enrollment is very 
large and the industrial population is pre- 
pared to contribute more generously to 
the Sunday school than to any other phase 
of church work. The result is that in sev- 


Arnold 


eral of the towns there are schools that are 
within measurable distance of the present 
ideal. The day for elaborate elevations, 
Gothic windows and roofs, has passed. 
The demand now is for a Primary De- 
partment with vestibule and Beginners’ 
rooms; the Junior Department with vesti- 
bule; an Intermediate school with cloak- 
rooms for boys and girls and as many 
classrooms for teaching purposes as can be 
secured; a Senior school with cloakrooms 
and a classroom for every class. Each de- 
partment must have its own entrance and 
yet there must be access between each, so 
that the general superintendent may have 
command of the entire school. 
J. W. BUTCHER. 


ARNOLD, THOMAS (1795-1842).—A 
distinguished divine and historian; ap- 
pointed to the headmastership of Rugby 
School (1828), generally regarded as “the 
greatest school instructor of our age, per- 
haps the greatest that has ever discharged 
the office.” 

Arnold was born at East Cowes, in the 
Isle of Wight, educated at Warminster 
(1803-1807), and Winchester (1807- 
1811). At the early age of sixteen he 
obtained a scholarship at Corpus Christi 
College, Oxford, took a first class degree 
in classics in 1814, was elected Fellow of 
Oriel in 1815, and gained the chancellor’s 
prizes for the Latin and English Essays. 
Arnold remained at Oxford, taking pupils 
and studying in the college libraries, till 
the year 1819, when he settled at Laleham 
on the Thames. Hight years at Oxford 
and nine years at Laleham prepared him 
for fourteen strenuous years at Rugby. 
Of the authors read at Oxford, Thucy- 
dides, Herodotus and Aristotle left the 
deepest impression on his mind; in polit- 
ical, literary and philosophical discussions 
he took a prominent part, and formed 
intimate friendships with some of the 
ablest men in the university; among them 
were Keble, Copleston, Davison, Whately, 
and above all John Taylor Coleridge to 
whom Arnold was wont to say he “owed 
more than to any living man.” In a letter 
contributed to Stanley’s Life of Arnold, 
Mr. Justice Coleridge says: “his friend- 
ship has been one of the many blessings 
of my life”; in the sketch of his character 
he is described as “in mind vigorous, ac- 
tive, clear-sighted, industrious, and daily 


E 


; 


Arnoiil 


accumulating and assimilating treasures 
of knowledge; not averse to poetry, but 
delighting rather in dialectics, philosophy, 
and history; with less of imagination than 
reasoning power . . . somewhat too little 
deferential to authority; yet without any 
real inconsistency, loving what was good 
and great in antiquity the more ardently 
and reverently because it was ancient.” 

A year before Arnold left Oxford for 
Laleham he was ordained deacon, and in 
1820 he married Miss Mary Penrose, the 
sister of one, of his earliest friends. Dur- 


ing this period of comparative quiet he 


was engaged in preparing private pupils 
for the universities; his favorite studies 
were philology and history. The reading 
of Niebuhr’s History of Rome gave him 
new views of historical criticism; “a new 
intellectual world dawned upon him, not 
only in the subject to which it related, 
but in the disclosure to him of the depth 
and research of German literature.” 
Arnold ,was thirty-three years of age 
when he was appointed headmaster of 
Rugby. Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, 


ventured to predict that “if Mr. Arnold — 


were elected, he would change the face of 


education all through the public schools — 
of England.” During his fourteen years 


at Rugby, Arnold both enlarged and en- 
nobled the conception of what a public 
school ought to be, and his example greatly 
influenced English education in his own 
and later times. Dr. Moberly, head- 
master of Winchester, bore this generous 
testimony: “A most singular and striking 
change-has come upon our public schools 
. . . Tam sure that to Dr. Arnold’s per- 
sonal earnest simplicity of purpose, 
strength of character, power of influence 
and piety, the carrying of this improve- 
ment in our schools is mainly attribu- 
table.” 

The means employed by Arnold were 
in no sense revolutionary. His founda- 
tion principle was that, in education, 
more important even than the imparta- 


tion of knowledge is the formation of — 


character. Stanley says: “he has a strong 
belief in the general union of moral and 
intellectual excellence.” But his “prime 
care” was the moral well-being of his 


pupils; a recurring note in his addresses — 
to them is: “what we must look for here 
is, 1st, religious and moral principle; 


endly, gentlemanly conduct; 8rdly, intel- 


Arnold 


lectual ability.” His chief endeavor was 
to imbue the sixth form, that is to say, the 
senior boys, with his own high sense of 
duty; but he manifested a personal inter- 
est in each boy and treated all with con- 
fidence. The result was a growth of a 
general feeling that “it was a shame to tell 
Arnold a lie—he always believes one.” 
But when once he was convinced that the 
influence of a boy was harmful, he insisted 
on his removal from the school. In the 
judgment of some modern educationists 
it was difficult for him to understand 
young boys. 

In Arnold’s educational methods the 
study of the classics held a preéminent 
position. It widened, however, to include 
instruction in history, literature, and 
morals. But he was the first to make 
room in the school curriculum for math- 
ematics, modern languages and _ history. 
Physical science he excluded; “surely the 
one theory needful for a Christian and an 
Englishman to study is Christian and 
moral and political philosophy.” One of 
his successors, Dr. Percival, Bishop of 
Hereford, says: “His attitude towards 
physical science would thus be primarily 
due to his Christian idealism, and his fear 
of the materialistic tendency of scientific 
study.” In Arnold’s judgment it was 
essential that a school should be a Chris- 
tian school. “It is not necessary that this 
should be a school of 200, or 100, or 50 
boys; but it is necessary that it should be 
a school of Christian gentlemen.” Hence, 
in the development of the pupils, he at- 
tached great importance to the “Divinity” 
lesson and to his weekly sermon. 

For an estimate of Arnold’s work in 
historical research and of his influence 
as a leader of the Broad Church party, as 
well as of his efforts to liberalize the na- 
tional church, reference must be made to 
Stanley’s biography, a classic which 
should be on every teacher’s shelves. 
“Arnold was a fighting Paladin, entering 
_with ardour into the political and theo- 
logical controversies of his time,” writes 
Dr. J. G. Fitch. But though he was a 
_ conspicuous figure in the world outside 
_ Rugby, his life work was done within the 
_ walls of the school with which his name is 
inseparably joined. In 1841 Arnold was 
appointed Regius professor of History at 
Oxford University and delivered an inau- 
gural course of lectures; but he died sud- 


Asbury 


denly on the 12th of June, 1842, and never 
took up the duties of this high office. His 
eldest son, in his poem on Rugby Chapel, 
has in noble lines described his father’s 
“life upon earth,” saying on behalf of 
those who knew Arnold of Rugby best 
that if toil or dejection tried his spirit, 
“of that we saw nothing—to us thou wast 
still cheerful, and helpful, and firm.” 
J. G. TAsKER. 
References: 

Arnold, Thomas. Miscellaneous 
Works of Thomas Arnold, D.D. 

Arnold, Thomas. Sermons preached 
at Rugby School. 

Findlay, J. J. Arnold of Rugby, his 
School Life and Contributions to Edu- 
cation. (Cambridge University Press, 
1897.) 

Stanley, A. P. The Life and Corre- 
spondence of Thomas Arnold, DD. 
( Various editions. ) ; 


ART IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.—SrxrE 
Picturts, THE UsE oF, IN RELIGIOUS 
EDUCATION, 


ASBURY, FRANCIS (1745-1816).— 
The first bishop of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church to be ordained in the United 
States. Born at Handsworth, Stafford- 
shire, England, 1745. At sixteen years 
of age he became a local preacher, and at 
twenty-two was received as a member of 
the Wesleyan Conference. In 1772, Mr. 
Wesley appointed him “general assistant 
in America,” and here he labored inde- 
fatigably in spite of many difficulties and 
infirmities, but lived to see the results 
of his labors in a strong and prosperous 
church. He was always interested in chil- 
dren. Rev. W. P. Strickland, his biogra- 
pher, states: that the bishop organized a 
Sunday school in Hanover county, Va., in 
1786, the school being held in the house of 
Thomas Crenshaw. This is sometimes 
called the first American Sunday school; 
but there appears to be no reference to it 
in the bishop’s Journal. (See First Sun- 
day Schools. ) 

S. G. AYREs. 

References: 

Janes, E. L. Character and Career 

of Francis Asbury. (New York, 1872.) 

Strickland, W. P. The Pioneer Bish- 
op; or, the Life and Times of Francis 

Asbury. (New York, 1858.) 


Ascension Day 


Tipple, E. S., ed. Heart of Asbury’s 
Journal. (New York, 1904.) 


ASCENSION DAY.—Sre Curistian 
YEAR. 


ASCETICISM.—Srr ReEticion, Psy- 
CHOLOGY OF, 


ASH WEDNESDAY.—SErE CHRISTIAN 
YEAR, 


ASSYRIANS.—Sere Reticious Epvuca- 
TION, ANCIENT, HisTORY OF. 


ATHLETIC LEAGUES, SUNDAY- 
SCHOOL.—There are three types of Sun- 
day-school athletic leagues. The first type 
is the simpler form of organization in 
which a group of Sunday schools unite 
in forming a league in baseball, basket 
ball, or bowling. A committee is formed 
to work out rules to govern and a schedule 
of games is arranged. Such leagues are 
temporary and are usually organized 
simply to promote a given sport in a given 
time. 

A second type is more comprehensive. 
The program involves a wide variety of 
activities. The Brooklyn Sunday School 
Athletic League is an example. The ac- 
tivities in such a league include baseball 
leagues, basket-ball leagues, track and 
field athletics—both indoor and outdoor 
—gymnastics, physical tests, a summer 
camp, meets in a large armory, cross-coun- 
try runs, instruction in swimming, and in 
first aid. ‘Trained leaders are furnished 
the churches for the direction of their 
physical work where such is undertaken. 
Lecturers are furnished on health talks, 
including sex hygiene. 

In fact, the league includes all forms of 
physical activity. There is a governing 
committee of from ten to twenty men 
selected from among the leaders in the 
Sunday schools, including the physical 
director of the Young Men’s Christian 
Association, whose technical experience is 
very valuable. The committee meets at 
least monthly and a general meeting of 
the league is held quarterly. The officers 
are elected at the annual meeting. Sub- 
committees direct the different activities. 
Only such activities as each church de- 
sires are furnished. The following sub- 
committees indicate the method of placing 


Athletic Leagues 


responsibility: Executive Committee; Reg- 
istration Committee, to pass on eligibility 
of athlete and decide disputes; Physical 
Education Committee to provide lecturers 
on health, promote first aid, prepare health 
literature; Committee on Gymnastics to 
organize gymnastic events, furnish teach- 
ers for gymnastic work in churches and 
provide drills and programs for such 
work; Committee on Standard Tests, by 
which is meant the provision of tests to 
encourage individual work and the de- 


velopment which comes with the practice 


necessary to acquire the standard. A 
bronze button is given to each boy making 
the record required in his age group. 
These tests are as follows: Boys twelve to 
fourteen years of age—70 yards potato 
race, 25 seconds; pull-up, 6 times; broad 
jump, 5 feet 6 inches. In the potato race, 
six potatoes are used five feet apart. 
The box is placed outside the starting 
line and the boy must run around the box 
when depositing the potato. Wooden 
eggs may be used as potatoes. In the pull- 
up, the chin must be brought above the 
bar and return must be made to a full 
arm. hang after each pull-up. 

Juniors, fourteen to sixteen years— 
pull-up, 8 times; 120 yards potato race, 
40 seconds; running high jump, 3 feet 10 
inches. In this potato race eight potatoes 
are used five feet apart. With this 
difference the rule is the same as in the 
boys’ group. 

Intermediate, sixteen to eighteen years 
—pull-up, 10 times; + mile potato race, 
2 minutes and 22 seconds; dip, 7 times; 
running high jump, 4 feet 2 inches. In 
the dip, the arms must be fully flexed and 
the push-up must be to a straight arm 
stand. In the potato race, seventeen pota- 
toes are used and are placed in a box and 
must be carried one at a time to another 
box 38 feet 6 inches distant. 

In addition there is a Committee on 
Bowling, and a Committee on Summer 
Camp, which has charge of the equip- 
ment, and promotes attendance upon the 
camp, holding a mid-winter reunion ban- 
quet to promote good fellowship. (See 
Camps, Church.) 

For two seasons an executive secretary 
was employed by the Brooklyn committee 
to direct the league. At present the 
physical director of the Young Men’s 
Christian Association is the secretary, and 


: 
| Athletic Leagues 


this relationship is established in most 
communities where there is a Young 
Men’s Christian Association. An annual 
membership fee of from two to five dollars 
is charged each school. This will usually 
cover the general expenses for promotion. 
Each activity can be made self-sustaining 
through special entry fees and paid ad- 
missions to public events. Each boy is 
required to register and his registration 
must be indorsed by the superintendent 
of the Sunday school, stating that he is 
in good standing in the school, and by a 
physician who states that he is in good 
physical condition. The boy must main- 
tain a record of sixty per cent attendance 
in order to remain in good standing. This 
helps the Sunday school. By such a 
_method as this the Sunday school is able 
to secure not only facilities for physical 
education, but expert supervision. It 
enables the Sunday school to enter into 
activities which hitherto it has been un- 
able to entertain and thus secure a point 
of contact and leadership in the experi- 
ences of men and boys to which heretofore 
it has been unrelated. (See Gymnasiums, 
Church. ) ; 

The dangers of such a league are that 
representative men are not selected to 
direct local teams, that the desire to win 
may be exaggerated, and that the stand- 
ards are not upheld. Right leadership is 
essential to efficiency. Where this is se- 
-eured the results are good. Emphasis 
should be placed upon all-round develop- 
ment, extreme and highly specialized com- 
petition should be discouraged, and events 
arranged to encourage the average per- 
son. 

A third form of league is one in which 
there is the large variety of physical ac- 
tivities mentioned under the second type, 
but an organization in which athletics is 
simply a part of a wider program of Sun- 
day-school work so that athletics will not 
have an exaggerated emphasis and in 
which it will be more harmoniously bal- 

anced. A local Sunday-school union 
might have such an athletic department 
as a part of its work, without losing any 
of the advantages of the league and at 
the same time securing the other desirable 
benefits. | 

Unquestionably, the best way to teach 
purity and temperance is not as separate 
departments, but as a part of the depart- 


Atmosphere 


ment of physical education which gives 
these subjects a wholesome basis. Hach 
local Sunday school should have in minia- 
ture a department similar to the larger 
league organization with responsible indi- 
viduals in charge. G. J. FIsHER. 


ATHLETICS.—Srr Atuuetic Leagues, 
S. S.; Gymnasiums, CHURCH. 


ATMOSPHERE IN RELIGIOUS EDU- 
CATION.—The word “atmosphere” is 
quite commonly used in a figurative sense 
to denote the play of social influences in 
definite directions upon the individual. 
The student goes to Paris to secure the 
benefit of its art atmosphere, to Berlin 
for the musical atmosphere, and some per- 
sons select a summer hotel because of its 
intellectual, moral, or religious atmos- 
phere. 

In reality this is a form of stimulus or 
suggestion arising from a prevailing social 
mental attitude, interest or activity—a 
recognized consensus as to aims, duties, 
pleasures, pursuits, or aspiration. It is as 
necessary to the development of person- 
ality as is formal teaching and training. 
It is the air which the child breathes as 
contrasted with the food which is given 
to him by prescription. The child thrives 
quite as much by what he unconsciously 
inhales as by that upon which he is con- 
sciously fed. 

It is essential, therefore, that all who 
are in the position of parents, teachers, 
guardians, or who occupy any sphere of 
moral or spiritual influence with their 
fellows—and especially over the young— 
should regard themselves as makers or 
vitiators of a wholesome, educative, social 
atmosphere. ‘They are real factors, one 
way or the other. 

It is quite evident that the atmosphere 
created by social environment is a force 
chiefly acting first upon the unconscious 
or subsconscious feelings or emotions. It 
is of prime importance, therefore, that the 
educator (be he parent, teacher, or com- 
panion only) recognize the fundamental 
nature of the feelings in character-form- 
ing. Feeling rules the world. An idea 
acts only if it is felt. “A simple fact of 
knowledge produces nothing and does 
nothing.” Stanley Hall says: “The mind 
is evolved out of heartiness. People do 
not have mind worth thinking of unless 


Atmosphere 


they have capacity for sensitiveness.” Ac- 
cepting the primacy of the feelings or emo- 
tional or affective states in the making of 
personality the question is “What is the 
best method of training men?” 

Especially in moral and spiritual edu- 
cation, all grades of the child’s emotions, 
intellectual and other, are of supreme im- 
portance. He must be trained in such 
feelings or emotional sentiments as rever- 
ence, trust, obedience to law and to higher 
powers, courage, generosity, hope, love, 
gratitude, sympathy, etc. 

This can best be done by indirection or 
atmospheric stimulus. Precept or direct 
teaching is but the bony skeleton in this 
training. A cheerful, orderly, punctual, 
harmonious household or home life 
creates an atmospheric influence fruitful 
of results which are not possible by any 
formal panegyrics of those qualities. 
These influences are indirect, but the 
parents should set a distinct value on 
them. A father who is enthusiastic in 
his work will stimulate the children indi- 
rectly as he could not do by repeated 
injunctions to be enthusiastic. 

Silence, odor, the raising of the hat or 
bowing of the knee, anniversaries, cere- 
monials, music, pictures, admiration, 
heroic devotion and self-sacrifice, cheer- 
ful suffering, graceful and gentle bearing, 
firmness+all such enter into the compo- 
sition of a wholesome atmosphere. 

Three rules may be formulated which 
the parent or guardian may well use as 
modes of indirect influence on different 
occasions, viz.: (1) Direction, (2) De- 
flection, (3) Counteraction. 

One indirectly directs when he ad- 
dresses himself to the child’s construc- 
tive sense, bringing to him ideals through 
nature, art, and human deeds or motives. 
He deflects, when, seeing the child sub- 
jected to or in danger of unwise and 
harmful conditions, he does what he can 
to deflect the child’s attention from them. 
He counteracts, when, having found the 
child absorbing what is unwholesome or 
following the path of evil suggestion, he 
(indirectly and atmospherically) counter- 
acts or restrains in the child these habits 
of thought or action already in progress. 

The exposition of these rules by illus- 
tration is impossible here. Nor would 
this exhaust the subject of atmospheric 
nurture or of indirect moral-spiritual 


* 


Attention 


training. Enough has been said to indi- 
cate its importance to the Sunday school, 
the church, the wider companionship, 
and to the home. Indirectly to influence 
the child’s feelings, sentiments, and atti- 
tudes of mind, in regard to disapprovals, 
desires, aspirations, admirations, and af- 
fections, is largely the art of suggesting 
choices and consequences to the subcon- 
scious mind. (See Emotion, Place of; 
Emotions, Training the.) 
Patterson Du Bots, 
Reference: 

Du Bois, Patterson. The Natural 
Way wm Moral Training. Chap. III, 
“Nurture by Atmosphere.” (New 
York, c1903.) 


. ATTENDANCE AT SUNDAY SCHOOL. 

—SEE Loss 1n S. S. ATTENDANCE, 
Causes oF; Morat AND Reticious Epv- 
CATION, TESTS OF EFFICIENCY IN; RE- 
CRUITING THE S. 8., METHODs OF; REGIS- 
TRATION, SYSTEMS OF; STATISTICAL 
METHODs FOR THE §. S., TRANSIENTS IN 
S. S. ATTENDANCE. 


ATTENTION.—Defined psychologically, 
attention is the centralization of con- 
sciousness upon some thing or some idea. 
It is like the focusing of the camera upon 
the object to be taken. There are two 
kinds of attention: the spontaneous, which 
comes with no effort of the will; and the 
controlled, which is directed by conscious 
effort. The attention of young children is 
of the spontaneous variety. It is hard for 
them to focus their attention, and it is 
impossible for them to hold it for any 
length of time. Even the child of eight or 
ten cannot be held long. Everything that 
happens about him diverts his attention. 
It is like trying to keep a small crawling 
insect in the field of view of a microscope. 
Nature intended that it should be so. 
It is a guard against one-sided develop- 
ment. It takes years of training before 
one can hold himself for long periods at a 
task, and the power of abstraction, that 
can make one oblivious of everything save 
the problem in hand, is the supreme ac- 
complishment of the scholar. ; 

To win and to hold attention is one of 
the finest arts that a teacher ever learns 
to master. It can be done only when one 
thoroughly understands both his subject 
and his pupils. First, there must be a 


iy 


) 
Attention 


strong appeal to interest. (See Interest 
and Education.) Something attractive, 
new, worth while, interesting, must be pre- 
sented. ‘The man who teaches boys to 
make a boat is sure to have attention. 
Then the teacher of the classes of young 
children must not expect continuous at- 
tention. The pupils cannot give it if 
‘they try. He must not dwell upon one 
thing too long. He must seek constantly 
for variety; he must present his material 
with enthusiasm; he must stand where 
he can see, and be seen by every member 
of the class, and must be able to adapt 
himself instantly to what he sees; he must 
arouse curiosity by exhibiting at times 
illustrative material; he must keep the 
class busy with hands and brain. Variety 
is not only the spice but the very life of 
teaching. The surest way not to hold the 
attention of a class of young pupils is to 
talk constantly to them in a serious tone. 
It is the teacher’s office to teach and not 
to preach; and the keynote of teaching is 
careful preparation, variety, and adapta- 
tion of methods and material to the class. 
(See Attention, How to Secure and Hold; 
Psychology and Pedagogy, Contributions 
of, to the Work of the S. 8.) 
F. L. Parrer. 


ATTENTION, HOW TO SECURE AND 
HOLD.—To secure and hold the pupil’s 
attention is the teacher’s first and most 
fundamental problem. To attempt to 
each without attention is useless. The 
dupil is present in body but not in mind. 
‘(tis even harmful, for it results in wrong 
-mpressions and inattentive habits. 
| Attention is but another name for 
lefinite, clean-cut mental activity. What- 
aver one is clearly conscious of he is at 
what moment paying attention to. The 
‘acts may best be described by a figure of 
speech. Just as the field of a camera has 
\ focus where the picture is clear and dis- 
‘inet, and things upon its margin appear 
nore or less blurred and vaguely outlined 
n proportion to their distance from the 
‘ocus, so the field of consciousness has a 
‘ocus and a margin. The activity of the 
nind always centers about some one 
‘hing or group of things, some single idea 
w thought and this is the object of atten- 
‘ion. Something else may take its place 
n the fraction of a second, for the mind 
noves quickly; but for the moment this 





Attention 


stands at the focus and other things are 
upon the margin. It is clearly and dis- 
tinctly apprehended; they are more or 
less dim and blurred. 

Attention is a constant characteristic 
of consciousness. ‘There are degrees, of 
course, of mental alertness. Yet one is 
always, with some degree or other of con- 
centration, paying attention to something. 
Not to do so is to be unconscious. The 
inattentive pupil is inattentive, not be- 
cause he is mentally inert, but because his 
mind is wandering. He is really paying 
attention, but to something else than the 
lesson. The teacher’s problem is not so 
much to create attention within him, as 
successfully to compete with something 
else which is more attractive. 

Attention is sometimes involuntary. 
Certain stimuli, chiefly for reasons re- 
lated to organic welfare, at times force 
themselves upon attention even against 
one’s will. Aside from this, attention is 
of two kinds—voluntary and spontaneous. 
Attention is voluntary when directed upon 
some object by an act of will. It re- 
quires effort. One is more or less con- 
scious of a conflict of impulses. He feels 
the attraction of other things, but resists 
them and holds his mind to the chosen 
object. Attention is spontaneous when 
it is given to some object naturally and 
without effort. There is no inward con- 
flict; one is whole-minded. Activity 
(q. v.) is in the direction of interest. 

The spontaneous attention of the pupil 
is worth more to the teacher than his vol- 
untary attention. Under its direction, he 
is more apt to do thorough work. For 
the time, he identifies himself with his 
task. His study is whole-hearted. Since 
he needs spend no effort upon himself, to 
hold steady his vagrant wits, he puts all 
the more strength into the work of the 
hour. 

Voluntary attention, on the other hand, 
is an unstable state. It cannot long be 
sustained without lapsing into spontane- 
ous attention of some sort. Hither the 
mind wanders from the topic set and must 
be pulled back to work; or one gets in- 
terested in the task that was begun by 
effort, and further attention to it becomes 
spontaneous. 

The teacher should aim, therefore, so 
to teach that the subject itself will 
naturally engage the interest and claim 


Attention 


the attention of the pupil. To rely upon 
any external means of securing attention, 
to demand or coax for it, to seek it with 
threats or bribes, to appeal to the pupil’s 
good-will, or to obtain it by beginning 
with a story or question that bears no real 
relation to the matter to be dealt with, 
in the hope that once secured it may some- 
how be kept and transferred to the proper 
object, is to fall short of the best. Such 
methods are specious. They do not help, 
and may hinder, the pupil’s understand- 
ing of the subject. His attention so se- 
cured is unstable, his interest wrongly 
placed, his vision of the truth apt to be 
distorted. 

This is not to imply that the teacher 
should neglect externals. On the con- 
trary, he should take the greatest care to 
see that all external conditions favor 
rather than oppose the pupil’s giving at- 
tention to the subject under discussion. 
Much may be accomplished, even before 
the class hour, by a teacher of foresight 
and imaginative common sense, either to 
remove entirely or to minimize those ele- 
ments of the situation that are apt to 
compete with him for the pupil’s interest 
and to distract the pupil’s attention. It 
is highly important, first of all, that the 
physical conditions be favorable. If pos- 
sible, each class should have a room of 
its own. This should be furnished simply 
and comfortably. It should contain 
nothing in the way of furniture, pictures, 
or paraphernalia that is not in line with 
the work that the class is to do. The 
teacher should see to it at each hour that 
the heat is right, the air fresh. He should 
so arrange the seating that he can see 
every pupil, and thus be able to detect 
and meet with a remedy the first signs of 
inattention, lack of comprehension, or dis- 
order on the part of any pupil. (See 
Class Management.) He should have an 
understanding with the administrative 
officers of the school, and so plan the ad- 
ministrative features of his own work, that 
there will be no danger of his class being 
interrupted during the teaching hour by 
some superintendent or secretary. 

The teacher should be careful, moreover, 
not to introduce distractions, either by 
some personal peculiarity or by a wrong 
method of procedure. Anything that 
calls attention to himself or to his manner 
of doing things draws it away from the 


Attentio: | 


subject. Affectation, nervousness, diffi. 
dence or blatant self-confidence, manner 
isms of speech or gesture, are to bh 
avoided; a natural, direct way of dealing 
with the subject is to be cultivated. Ty 
reprimand a pupil or to call for the at 
tention of one whose mind is wandering 
is a most unhappy method of dealing wit! 
disorder or inattention, and should h 
used only as a last resort. It simph 
makes matters worse. By so doing th 
teacher distracts the attention of the clay; 
as a whole. Instead of one pupil no 
thinking of the lesson, he now has ter 
or twenty to win back. Teachers wh 
use objects of any sort to illustrate th: 
lesson must be especially careful. Th: 
objects should not be brought out too soon 
for they distract attention if seen befor 
they are actually used. And after use they 
should at once be put away, unless the 
fuss involved in doing so would constituk 
more of a distraction than their continue¢ 
presence is apt to be. It hardly need be 
added that objects ought not to be used 
at all unless the teacher is sure that thei 
use will result in just the way he intends 
Stories and illustrations are to be avoided 
that do not clearly illustrate, or that are 
suggestive of other trains of thought likel; 
to be more inviting to the pupil than the 
lesson itself. (See Illustration.) 

The monotony of a set routine will 
deaden any class and result in the loss 01 
attention. It is a fundamental law ol 
the mind’s working that one tends to re 
spond to a repeated stimulus in an habit. 
ual way, and that what is done through 
habit becomes more and more mechanical 
and less and less a matter of conscious 
attention. Moreover, attention cannot be 
kept long upon an unchanging object. As 
soon as a given thing has been brought 
into focus and has been clearly and dis: 
tinctly apprehended, the mind moves on. 
One thing is now known, one problem 
solved—now what next? The teacher 
should do all that he can, therefore, to 
make the discussion progressive and t 
apply to every pupil, from moment t0 
moment, the stimulus required to keep 
him interested and at work. This de- 
pends in part upon a few simple rules of 
method that only express a degree of com- 
mon sense that every teacher should have, 
and that must be administered in light 0 
that endowment. 


) 
‘Attention 


/ 1. The teacher should at times vary his 
general mode of procedure. It is a mis- 
take to conduct every lesson, Sunday after 
Sunday, in just the same way. Many 
Sunday-school teachers have been misled 
in this matter by lesson helps which al- 
ways contain the same type of approach, 
presentation, and comment, and by 
teacher-training books which insist with 
alliterative artfulness upon some “plan of 
the lesson” which they recommend as a 
panacea for poor pedagogic practice. The 
list of exactly fifty-two lessons, planned 
for use far in the future with the amounts 
to be covered each Sunday about equal 
and with the implication that some moral 
or spiritual truth is to be derived from 
each one, has a tendency to encourage 
woodenness of routine as class upon class, 
school upon school, the world over, pro- 
ceeds at equal pace through the cycle. 
It would be well if more teachers could 
understand that they have freedom to 
omit a lesson entirely, provided the time 
30 gained be used for the more thorough 
study of another lesson which has really 
aroused the interest of the class and set 
them eagerly at work to know more 
through their own efforts in learning. 

2. Here and there throughout the 
teaching of the lesson, when attention 
begins to flag or when the bringing out of 
some fact or truth demands it, the teacher 
should appeal to the eyes of his pupils as 
well as to their ears. Besides the use of 
pictures, maps, and objects, this means 
that every class should have its own 
blackboard, upon which may be put a 
rapid descriptive sketch, a map or dia- 
gram, an important word or principle 
written as well as spoken, done by the 
teacher as he talks. Such blackboard 
illustration, free, personal, and sponta- 
neous, adding to hearing the seeing, is 
invaluable provided the method is not 
overworked. (See Blackboard and _ its 
Use. ) 

3. The teacher may at times enlist in re- 
sponse the hands as well as the tongues of 
his pupils. The value of manual work in 
Sunday school as well as in public school 
has lately come to be better understood. 
Whether or not the class undertakes such 
work in a more or less formal manner, the 
teacher may, now and then, as an inci- 
dental part of the discussion, give to 
various pupils a Bible passage to look up, 


Attention 


a place to point out on the map, or a bit 
of blackboard work to do. 

4, By his method of questioning, the 
teacher may do much either to secure and 
hold or to lose the interest and atten- 
tion of his class. ‘To ask questions from 
a printed list in the textbook, or even to 
read questions that he himself has pre- 
pared, is to fail unpardonably. He ought 
to be able to look straight into the eyes of 
his pupils and to talk with them as with 
friends. The asking and answering of 
questions should express a natural and re- 
ciprocal social codperation in the discov- 
ery and discussion of the truth. The 
teaching should be live, spontaneous, and 
personal. There should be careful pre- 
vious study on the part of the teacher, of 
course, not only of the lesson itself, but 
of how best to question his class concern- 
ing it. It is well even to formulate cer- 
tain questions in writing, that he may 
get them clearly in mind. But he should 
leave his notes behind when he comes to 
the class. No book or paper should en- 
gage his attention and come as a barrier 
between him and his pupils. He cannot 
hope to interest them in a subject which 
he has not himself mastered sufficiently to 
be independent of book and manuscript. 

It is a mistake to ask questions of the 
entire class and to expect and rely upon 
concert answers. It is one of the surest 
ways to deaden the class and to keep pupils 
from doing any real work. The questions 
should be pressed home individually, by 
calling in each case upon some particular 
pupil to answer. In so doing, however, 
the teacher should be sure to address the 
question in the first place to the class as 
a whole, without indicating by word, look, 
or gesture which pupil he wishes to an- 
swer it, and then at the end of the question 
should call upon some pupil by name: 
Each member of the class should feel that 
every question is addressed to him, since 
he may be called upon to answer it. 
Pupils should not be called upon in any 
fixed rotation, alphabetical, by seating, or 
otherwise. It is well to call upon a par- 
ticular pupil several times in the course 
of a single recitation, whether or not all 
other pupils have been given a chance to 
answer since the last question addressed 
to him. The teacher should be in some 
measure inscrutable. He should maintain 
within his pupils a degree of uncertainty 


Attention 


as to what is to come next. No pupil 
ought ever to be able to feel that after he 
has answered his question, made his re- 
port, or discussed his topic, his work is 
over for the day. 

If a pupil fails to understand a ques- 
tion because of inattention, the teacher 
ought not to repeat it, but should go to 
another for the answer. Even if the fail- 
ure is due to inability to understand its 
meaning, it is generally best to let some 
one else answer, then to recast and explain 
it if necessary. It is a mistake to form the 
habit of repeating the pupil’s answer. 
The members of the class should be 
trained to pay as careful attention to one 
another as to the teacher. It is equally 
bad to fall into the habit of amending the 
pupil’s answer. This practice begets slov- 
enliness of thought and expression. The 
pupils will take no pains to think clearly 
and to express themselves adequately, be- 
cause they know that the teacher will do it 
for them. (See Questioning, The Art of.) 

5. Throughout the hour, the teacher 
should keep alive to all that is going on 
in the class. He should never so concen- 
trate his attention upon the pupil who 


chances to be reciting that he fails to note. 


the attention or inattention, comprehen- 
sion or lack of it, of the other pupils. 
From moment to moment, he should fit 
his action or saying to the conditions he 
confronts. He should be able to meet 
incipient disorder before it is well under 
way; and to catch the wandering mind 
before it has had a real chance to stray. 
His best method of dealing with both is 
immediately to ask a question of the pupil 
concerned, or to give him something to 
do. 

In all of the above only the relatively 
negative and external aspects of the 
matter have been considered. It is essen- 
tial, indeed, that the teacher do all that 
he can to minimize distractions and by 
wise devices of method to keep his entire 
class interested and at work. But no 
amount of ingenuity and effort will avail 
if the ability be lacking to fill the hour 
with positive interest. The teacher should 
be able so to teach that the subject matter 
itself will absorb the interest and com- 
mand the attention of his pupils. 

The fulfillment of this, the most funda- 
mental of all conditions of effective teach- 
ing, involves two things: the teacher’s 


Attention ! 


mastery of his material, and his under- 
standing of his pupils. 

The teacher must master his material. 
He must know his subject, and know it 
thoroughly. He himself must be inter- 
ested in it, and have made it a part of 
himself, It is the only way to attain 
power in teaching. And this means not 
simply that he should make adequate gen- 
eral preparation for his work, but that he 
should make definite and specific prepara- 
tion for the teaching of each lesson. It 
means, moreover, that he should not be 
content merely to collect the particular 
points that he may wish to discuss with 
the class; but he should gain foundation 
and background, understanding and per- 
spective by a study of far more than he 
may ever feel called upon to present.’ (See 
Lesson Previews.) “Even to teach a small 
thing well,” says Professor Palmer, “we 
must be large.” 

The teacher must understand his pupils, 
If a given lesson is worth teaching to 
them at all, it has some “point of con- 
tact,” as Patterson Du Bois calls it, with 
their needs and interests. (See Contact, 
Point of.) That point of contact, which 
will bring together the point of the lesson 
on the one hand and the wants and needs 
of his pupils on the other, the teacher 
must. find. He must know, or must find 
out, what ideas they already possess, what 
experiences they have had, what instincts 
and habits are within them, what they like 
and why they like it. It is in terms of 
these ideas and tendencies already pos- 
sessed that they will understand whatever 
new truths he has to bring to them. If 
he will so present the new that they can 
rightly understand it, if he will throw the 
light of their own experience upon it and 
bring it forth as an answer to their own 
needs—in technical phrase, if he will ful- 
fill the conditions of genuine apperception 
—he will have and hold their attention. 
(See Psychology and Pedagogy, Contri- 
butions of, to the Work of the S. 8S.) 

L, A. WEIGLE. 

References: 

Dewey, John. Interest and Effort m 
Education. (Boston, 1913.) 

Du Bois, Patterson. The Point of 
Contact in Teaching. Ed. 4 rev. and 
enl. (New York, 1901.) 

Fitch, Sir J.G. The Art of Securing 
Attention. (Chicago, ¢1888.) 


~ ae 
. aa 


| 


| 


‘3 


Audubon Societies 


Hughes, J. L. How to Secure and 
Retain Attention. (Syracuse, c1885.) 

Weigle, L. A. The Teacher and the 
Pupil. Chaps. 16, 17, 18. (Philadel- 
phia, 1911.) 


AUDUBON SOCIETIES AND THEIR 
WORK.—The annual loss to forestry and 


agriculture in the United States, through 


amounts to over a billion dollars. 


the depredation of insect and rodent pests, 
Birds 


are one of nature’s most effective checks 
-on the undue increase of these pests. 


Birds perhaps more than any other form 
of life appeal to our esthetic sense and 
contribute to the joy of living. Through 


‘ignorance of their economic value and in- 
difference to their esthetic appeal, wanton 
destruction of our feathered friends has 
resulted in the extermination of some 
species and great reduction in the number 


of others, and simultaneously (and signi- 
ficantly so) the loss above referred to has 


increased. 


Notwithstanding these facts, it was not 


‘till about 1883, that there began to be an 


awakening to a realization to what bird 
destruction was leading. 
In 1886, Dr. George Bird Grinnell, 


editor of Forest and Stream, launched the 


first Audubon Society, nation-wide in its 
scope. By August, 1887, this Society had 


secured a membership of 38,400. No dues 
were asked, Forest and Stream Publish- 
ing Company bore all the expense of the 
‘movement, and for two years issued the 


Audubon Magazine. 


The undertaking 
was too great and with the close of 1888, 
the effort ceased. 

The system of state Audubon societies 
came into being in January, 1896, when 


_a Society was organized in Massachusetts. 
Pennsylvania soon followed, and the or- 
ganization of societies in other states fol- 
lowed rapidly. 


federation of the state societies. 


In 1900, the National Committee of 
Audubon Societies was organized to be a 
Later it 
became the National Association of Audu- 
bon Societies. 

While Audubon work has embraced an 
immense variety of details, in the main the 
activities have been along three lines: 


Educational, legislative, and directly pro- 


— tective. 


In the former, farmers, chil- 


dren and the general public are educated 


in regard to the economic and esthetic 


65 


Australia 


value of birds. This has been by means 
of illustrated lectures, magazine and news- 
paper articles, and by publishing and dis- 
tributing an immense amount of valu- 
able literature. 

For the past three years a special plan 
of Junior Audubon Class work has been 
carried on in the schools. By this means 
44,747 school children have been inter- 
ested and given instructions regarding 
birds and their protection. This work is 
growing rapidly. The viewpoint of sports- 
men has been greatly improved, and there 
is a tendency to regard game conservation 
much more earnestly than in the past. 

The period since the beginning of Au- 
dubon work has seen great advancement 
in legislation for the protection of birds 
and game. Practically all laws for the 
protection of non-game birds have been 
enacted during that period. Many states 
which had no game laws, or laws which 
were inadequate, now have very good pro- 
tection for their wild life. 

In directly protective measures the 
National Association of Audubon Soci- 
eties has employed wardens to guard 
breeding colonies of birds, and where 
feasible, it has been active in having prop- 
erty on which such colonies bred set aside 
as government reservations, or the Asso- 
ciation has acquired it by purchase or 
lease, so that the birds might have a 
breeding sanctuary in perpetuity. 

Extinction of herons and sea birds, 
which was so imminent a few years ago, 
has been arrested, and many species have 
been enabled to regain something of their 
former numbers. 

Chiefly, however, Audubon methods 
awaken in the hearts of the people a love 
of birds and animate creation, some knowl- 
edge of wild life and a desire to know 
more concerning it, thus opening the way 
to a broader and more noble life. 

B. 8S. BowpisH. 


References: 
Audubon Societies. National Com- 
mittee. Leaflets. Reports. 


Also the publications of the Audu- 
bon Societies of the severai States. 


AUSTRALIA, SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
WORK IN.—Gradually pioneers are 
pushing their way into the center of 
Australia and although the progress is 
slow, wastes, at one time regarded as use- 


Australia 


less by reason of their isolation or defi- 
cient water supply, are now being peopled 
by men and women who are helping to 
solve the problem of the interior of this 
island continent. Among the early set- 
tlers were British Puritans who brought 
with them an enthusiasm and interest in 
the welfare of children. The Sunday 
school early became a favored agency of 
spiritual instruction, and it was organ- 
ized on excellent lines. 

As early as 1848 united gatherings of 
pupils were held in some of the chief 
towns, and teachers were helped and en- 
couraged by the sympathy, support, and 
patronage of the representatives of the 
Crown. The introduction of the Inter- 
national Uniform Lesson system in 1873- 
74, gave a great uplift to the work in 
Australia, led to the establishment of 
new Sunday-school unions and associa- 


tions, and strengthened and enlarged the 


few then in existence. It made possible 
in many ways interdenominational codper- 
ation and in less than three years the 
International Lesson became almost uni- 
versally adopted by the Protestant de- 
nominations, the Church of England 
schools excepted. In no country was the 
adoption of the International Lesson 
more general or the selection more faith- 
fully followed than in Australia. 

Sunday-School Organizations.  Fol- 
lowing the example of the British Sun- 
day School Union and its method of or- 
ganization, Sunday-school unions have 
been established in New South Wales, 
Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, 
and West Australia. Tasmania, the 
island state, has not yet succeeded in fol- 
lowing the example of the others, but this 
step may be taken in the near future. 
The oldest association or union is the 
South Australian, which has proved a val- 
uable agency for helping the schools. The 
Queensland Union has a fine record of 
service. ‘The Sunday School Union of 
Victoria, established 1871, which is in- 
corporated as a company, is the strong- 
est financially and otherwise. It is in 
possession of property to the value of 
about £8,000. The Unions in New South 
Wales and West Australia are of more 
recent formation, and give promise of 
permanent usefulness. 

In addition to the state unions, de- 
nominational unions were also formed in 


a | 


mS | 
pi 


Australia 


connection with the Church of England 
(under the name of Sunday-school asso- 


ciations), Methodist Church, Church of — 


Christ, and in some states by the Presby- 
terian Church. The schools of the Con- 
gregational and Baptist Churches, al- 
though not numerically strong, affiliate 
themselves with the interdenominational 
unions. 

Although all of the denominations are 
not represented in the state unions, there 
exists among the Protestant churches a 
willingness to codperate in holding con- 
ferences in some departments of teacher 
training and public demonstrations of 
pupils. 

The Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congre- 
gational churches, whose schools are not 
organized in the form of unions or asso- 
ciations, have Sunday School Committees 
or Departments which supervise the de- 
nominational work and report to their 
respective assemblies yearly or semi- 
yearly. In several of the churches a 
superintendent, who gives his whole time, 
is in charge of the state work. 7 

Work of Unions and Associations. In 


| 
| 


some respects the work of the interde- 


nominational state unions and denomina- 
tional associations and committees is du- 
plicated, due to the fact that for many 
years the former led the way to more ef- 
ficient service by the establishment and 
popularizing of pupils’ Scripture ex- 
aminations, teacher training, Bible read- 
ing associations and conferences. Now 
nearly all the denominations hold Scrip- 
ture examinations for pupils, arrange 
conferences, have lectures on educational 
topics for teachers, and there are at least 
tee Bible reading organizations in the 
eld. 

Scripture Examinations. The Schol- 
ars’ Scripture Examinations, based almost 
wholly on the International Uniform Les- 
sons, have proved helpful agencies for 
Bible study.. Awards in the form of 
medals, book prizes, and illuminated cer- 
tificates are given to successful candi- 
dates, and pupils present themselves for 
examination year after year until the 
grades, from elementary to advanced, are 
covered. . Probably over five thousand 
pupils in the states benefit annually by 
this means of instruction. 

In this connection the Scripture Ex- 


‘aminations and the examinations on the — 


Australia 


Shorter Catechism which are held by the 
Presbyterian Church in the State of Vic- 
toria, should be mentioned. They are 
earried on under what is known as the 
Allan Bequest Scheme. ‘The late Mr. 
Robert Allan of Buninyong bequeathed to 
_ the church in trust a sum of over £10,000, 
the interest on which was to be devoted to 
Sunday-school work. Provision was made 
in the bequest for the appointment of a 
Sunday-school superintendent or agent, 
and scholarships in the schools for the 
pupils securing the highest marks in the 
examinations. The scholarships are of 
the value of £25 per year, tenable for 
three years—the successful pupils to at- 
tend approved secondary schools. Mr. 
Allan wished to assist young men who 
desired to study for the ministry, although 
the bursaries are open for both young men 
and women. In addition a large sum is 
expended on book prizes as an encourage- 
ment to schools and pupils. The scheme 
which entails a daily written examination 
is not universally adopted even by Presby- 
terian schools, nor, according to Mr. 
Allan’s will, are the benefits confined ex- 
clusively to the denomination. However, 
a condition making the study of the 
Shorter Catechism part of the curriculum 
has so far excluded other Protestant de- 
nominations entitled to take advantage 
of it. The large number of Presbyterian 

schools working under the scheme indi- 
eates the good results from Mr. Allan’s 
plan. 

Bible Reading Unions. Chief among 
these are “The Young People’s Scripture 
Union,” and “The International Bible 
Reading Association.” The former has 
more than 30,000 members in Australia, 
and the latter somewhat less, (See Bible 
Reading Association, International.) 

The Training of Teachers. The higher 
education of teachers was one of the chief 
aims of the Sunday-school unions. Under 
the heading of “Teachers Examinations” 
_ studies in Biblical history, Christian evi- 
dences, and the art of teaching, were 
planned and for many years carried on 
with vigor; in connection with these 
prizes and certificates were awarded to 
stimulate interest, and to mark the at- 
tainment of a standard of efficiency. The 
first textbooks were Students Old and 
New Testament Histories, Sinai and 
Palestine, The Land and the Book, The 


Australia 


New Companion to the Bible, The Phi- 
losophy of the Plan of Salvation, Chris- 
tan Hvidences, Our Work, and Sunday 
School Teachers’ Manual. 

A decline in interest in the examina- 
tions and the difficulty in securing serious 
home study, suggested in the late Mr. 
F’. H. Ritchie the idea of a normal col- 
lege in connection with which students 
would have the help of lecturers, and the 
stimulus of companionship and associa- 
tion in work, A two years’ course of study 
was adopted embracing Biblical history 
and Christian evidences for the first year; 
and the art of teaching, theory, and prac- 
tice for the second year. Theological 
Hall professors, leading clergymen, and 
professional teachers gave their time gra- 
tuitously to instruct the students, and 
the success of the college has been proved 
by more than two decades of service. 
Thousands of teachers have been gradu- 
ated from the college, or have been partly 
trained and helped by it, and they have 
made their influence felt in the schools 
with which they were associated. Usu- 
ally, from fifty to one hundred and twenty 
young teachers annually present them- 
selves for entry in the central college and 
country branches. Of all teacher-train- 
ing schemes the normal college appears to 
be the most thorough and _ effective. 
Teachers’ weekly preparation classes, at 
one time popular, have almost ceased to 
exist. 

Although not the most effective means, 
an organized series of winter lectures has 
reached and assisted the largest number 
of teachers. Suburban centers were estab- 
lished and the ablest professional teachers 
and ministers contributed to the success 
attained. The studies have been varied 
by a change of textbooks, and The Point 
of Contact, From One to Twenty-One, 
The Primer on Teaching, among other 
books have formed the basis of courses of 
lectures which closed with a written ex- 
amination. The aggregate attendance 
reached 1,500 teachers weekly. Special 
courses in Biblical history have also been 
given, but the most popular proved to be 
a syllabus of subjects covering the prac- 
tical work of the Sunday school, each 
topic being treated by a department spe- 
cialist. 

The visit of Mr. G. Hamilton Archibald 


and party of England, gave a distinct 


Australia 


uplift to Primary work, and the methods 
advocated and demonstrated have been 
widely adopted in Australia. 

On the spiritual side missions con- 
ducted at different periods by two British 
children’s evangelists greatly impressed 
Sunday-school teachers and the results 
of the meetings brought a large number 
of young people to personal decision, and 


strengthened both the schools. and 
churches, 
Sunday-School Literature. Australia 


has depended largely for teachers’ and 
pupils’ helps upon British and American 
publishers, although a monthly Sunday- 
school Magazine, price one penny, was 
published in Sydney, New South Wales, 
more than half a century ago. Imported 
material is supplemented by Australian 
publications, which include the monthly 
magazine The Australian Sunday School 
Teacher, pupils’ illustrated leaflets, 
junior and advanced, and a quarterly ex- 
ercise book for use in the home. These 
circulate throughout all the states and 
New Zealand and are well supported and 
highly valued. 

Two recent publications in book form, 
A Sunday School of To-day, by William 
Shaw and H. Lipson Hancock, and 
Method wn Teaching, by the Rev. A. R. 
Osborn, M.A., mark the progressive 
movement. The former is an illustration 
of principles carried out in practice in a 
South Australian country mining town, 
and the latter deals with the pedagogical 
side of Sunday-school work. Both books 
are valuable contributions to the discus- 
sion of the problems of organization and 
graded instruction. 

The Sunday School as a Missionary 
Agency. ‘The cultivation of missionary 
interest for home and foreign work is a 
strong feature of the work in all the 
schools. In a large number of schools the 
weekly contributions are exclusively de- 
voted to missions. Their outlook is the 
world—China, India, Africa, New Guinea 
and the Islands of the Sea, all fall within 
the scope of their beneficence, and the 
frequent visits of missionaries on fur- 
lough from many fields sustain and 
quicken the interest. 

The home missions of the denomina- 
tions are maintained, and Sunday-school 
unions in several states have made them- 
selves responsible for the prosecution of 


. 
u 
Australia — 


a missionary agency conducted under the — 
name of Bush Mission work. Union 
schools in Australia, as in America, are 
common in remote and sparsely populated 
districts and the assistance of these ag 
well as the formation of new ones offers 
opportunity for fruitful activity. 

The state unions contribute literature 
for the support of new efforts, encourage 
the workers by visitation and correspond- 
ence, and where an agent is employed dis- 
trict meetings are organized to impress 
the people with the importance of the 
Sunday school and their own responsi- 
bilities in regard to it. Traveling agents 
with horses and vans have proved helpful 
factors in this home mission extension 
work. Circulating exchange libraries are 
used as an auxiliary in this service, the 
South Australian Union being especially 
active in this respect, as that society ad- 
ministers the income from the Angas 
Endowment. 

For more than a quarter of a century 
the Bush Mission work of the Victorian 
Union has been prosecuted with vigor. 
Hundreds of Sunday schools have been 
organized and have proved the fore- 
runners of churches. As soon as a school 
becomes self-supporting there usually 
comes the desire to assist in the founda- 
tion of others. 

Adult Bible Class Movement. In the 
Australian states this movement is in its 
infancy. Catching inspiration from a 
vigorous work in New Zealand, the Pres- 
byterian Church in Victoria made a be- 
ginning on similar lines. There are now 
two thousand young men and one thou- 
sand young women enrolled. The latter 
have thrown their energy into social work. 
The Young Women’s Bible Class Union 
recently raised £350 towards the Laundry 
Building Fund of the Girls’ Home, a 
humane and Christian agency of the Pres- 
byterian Church. The foreign and home 
missions have also been benefited by the 
organization. 

The Young Men’s Union has just taken 
a forward step by the appointment of a 
paid secretary. Corresponding work is 
carried on by the other denominations, 
but the Presbyterian movement at pres- 
ent affords the best illustration of organi- 
zation and aggressiveness. 

The Fellowship Association. The Fel- 
lowship Unions are in many respects 


H 


q 
\ 


t 


i 


- 


; 
if 
a 
A 
uy 
fi 
uy 


- Australia 


similar to the Bible class movement. 


Young men and women meeting together 
on Sabbath mornings, banded themselves 
into associations for Bible study and 
Christian fellowship. In two states the 
associations are numerically strong, they 
contribute liberally to missions, and the 
Victorian Union has its special sphere of 
missionary interest in Korea, where it 
maintains two missionaries. The Fellow- 
ship Unions have built up a virile type 
of layman and, through the preachers’ 
branch, have proved a source of assistant 
pulpit supply for the regular ministry and 
the maintenance of services in benevolent 
institutions. 

Christian Endeavor. When the Chris- 
tian Endeavor Society was introduced 
into Australia it made rapid progress. It 
gathered into its membership and for its 
leaders the young people who were al- 
ready engaged in Christian activities. It 
left a permanent influence by emphasiz- 
ing the importance and possibilities of 
practical Christian work undertaken and 
carried out by young people, although, 
generally speaking, interest in Christian 
Endeavor has waned. 

Sunday-School Reform. Almost sim- 
ultaneously with Great Britain and Amer- 
ica, advocates of grading and graded les- 
sons promoted this matter. However, 


the old school ideals as to the benefits of 
lesson uniformity are well supported. 
The new system of grading is looked upon 
by many as the classification of thirty 


years ago in a new aspect, and the graded 
lessons have been accepted slowly. ‘There 
is a general opinion that in the Beginners’ 
and Primary classes change is necessary. 


The Presbyterian Church of Victoria has 
taken the initiative by determining in 
favor of a graded system. of lessons and 


has approved the first part of a selection. 


It has also appointed a director of Sun- 


day schools and is solving the problem of 


lesson publication. 


Child Welfare Societies. The wel- 


fare of the child has always occupied a 
large place in the minds and hearts of 


given a prominent place. 


_ Australians, and prior to the adoption of 


a national scheme of education by the 
states, philanthropists initiated and car- 
ried on week day and Sunday schools, and 
in the former religious instruction was 
The adoption 
of state education led to the abandonment 


Australia 


of denominational schools—with the ex- 
ception of those conducted under the aus- 
pices of the Roman Catholic Church—and 
the efforts of those whose object had been 
the uplifting of the neglected children of 
the poorer classes. There still remained a 
sphere of usefulness among the children 
of the thriftless, the unfortunate, and the 
criminal section of the communities, and 
the organizations came into existence for 
saving the children. 

The Neglected Children and Industrial 
departments of the governments of the 
states receive into well-equipped Receiv- 
ing Homes, on commitment from the 
courts, abandoned infants, waifs, strays, 
and deserted children. The policy is not 
to retain them there, but to place them 
in private homes under the care of foster 
parents, who receive payment for mainte- 
nance. When the children are old enough 
and are fitted for service, employment is 
found for these state charges, but during 
the time they are dependent in foster 
homes and thereafter until adult age is 
reached, they are under the _ strictest 
supervision and inspection by Govern- 
ment officers. On the whole, considering 
the parentage and early environment of 
these children, the results are compar- 
atively satisfactory, but effort is being 
made to improve the methods of dealing 
with such children. 

Church and undenominational societies 
succor a better class of children. The so- 
cieties are recognized by the government, 
they also receive children on commitment 
by a magistrate, but institutional train- 
ing occupies a more prominent place. 
The Children’s Homes of many of the 
churches are real homes. Some of the 
homes, or the churches with which they 
are connected, own farms on which agri- 
cultural training is provided for boys. 

Orphanages, Protestant and Roman 
Catholic, are rendering national service 
by their care for and training of orphans. 
Endowments and contributions sustain 
these institutions. There are societies for 
the Protection of Children, whose object 
sometimes includes more than merely the 
suppression of brutality. Conditions 
which hinder physical development or 
educational opportunities receive atten- 
tion. 

Newsboys’ Clubs, The Gordon Homes, 
Try Societies, Ragged Boys’ Homes with 


Authority 


Farm Homes for training, Homes of 
Hope, Children’s Churches, Ministering 
Children’s League with Cottage by the 
Sea, are all societies or organizations en- 
gaged in a ministry to the young. A 
Child’s Welfare Exhibition in 1913 
brought before the public the work that 
is being done in behalf of the children. 
The exhibition intensified the deep inter- 
est that already existed. 

| ARCHIBALD JACKSON. 


AUTHORITY IN THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL.—1. Organization. Ordinarily 
authority is derived from the church, of 
which the Sunday school is a part. If 
the school is organized under church 
direction, the church, either by its high- 
est governing body, its local organization, 
or its local pastor, asserts authority over 
the school organization, teaching, and dis- 
cipline. But where Sunday schools of a 
particular denomination have been inde- 
pendently established before churches of 
that denomination were organized in the 
same neighborhood, a large degree of 
initiative has been customarily allowed 
in the methods and work of such schools. 
They have often remained practically in- 
dependent, their success having appar- 
ently won their freedom from interfer- 
ence. In many instances they have 
wisely aided the church. Some schools 
which were organized independently have 
remained apart from any church and are 
governed by elected officers. (See Union 
Sunday Schools.) 

2. Discipline. During the last twenty- 
five years, what may be called the con- 
stitutional principles of authority in the 
Sunday school have been substantially 
modified by the work of graded schools. 
These have largely eliminated the causes 
of friction and disorder, a result due to 
the grouping of pupils according to age, 
capacity, and attainment. This great 
fact in  Sunday-school development 
affects all exercise of authority, whether 
on the part of the highest body in the 
church, or of the local church, the pastor, 
the teacher in his class, or even on the 
part of one of the pupil chairmen of a 
pupil committee within the school. 
Grading of pupils goes far in the first 
place to prevent infraction of discipline ; 
and secondly, when it occurs, grading 
facilitates the reéstablishment of good 


. 


Authority 


discipline by indicating the cause and 
degree of insubordination. The penalty 
can then be determined with due regard 
for the constitutional plan and religious 
principle of the school. (See Discipline.) 
Grading helps one to appreciate the real 
nature of an offense and is a safeguard 
against an erroneous view of it and a 
possibly arbitrary punishment by an offi- 
cial. ‘The more careful the grading of 
pupils, the more likely are all causes of 
friction to be removed. 

A corresponding grading of the ma- 
terial, of the character of the instruc- 
tion, and of the qualifications of the 
teacher is required. ‘The ‘quality and 
range of the questions asked should be 
fitted to the capacity of the pupil. 
Methods employed in the public school 
may be selected from in order to aid 
in the work of the graded Sunday school, 
and some of them have greatly con- 
tributed to its success. Thus the exer- 
cise of authority, especially in any arbi- 
trary way, tends to become transformed 
into a frictionless codperation, or the 
harmonious functioning of classified 
groups. In those schools which are not 
graded, but follow traditional lines, au- 
thority now has resources which often 
dispense with the need for its arbitrary 
enforcement. It is guided by a better 
spirit, a spirit in which the shepherd 
is stronger than the ruler, though the 
ruler is still needed. The fact that the 
officers of the school are usually members 
of the church and labor that their pupils 
may also become members, supplies a 
high religious motive and creates a 
spiritual bond of interest and affection 
which lightens the burden of discipline. 
Thus much may be conceded without 
denying that proper grading would be 
still more conducive to that result. 

Authority in the school, thus strength- 
ened by grading the pupils, is exercised 
less consciously in the enforcing of rules 
than in the organization of the school 
for the development of Christian charac- 
ter. It is less admonitory and prohibi- 
tive, and more constructive. It reaches 
out into all forms of activity which pro- 
mote harmonious results. Keeping in 
mind the tests of efficiency, it exercises 
a wider discretion in endeavoring to meet 
them. It not only grades pupils and les- 
sons, apportions the time of the various 


Authority 


school exercises of Scripture reading, 
singing, and prayer, but varies the rou- 
tine of Bible study by instruction in the 
duties of Christian citizenship, espe- 
cially in municipal affairs; by directing 
the study of religious movements and of 
great characters outside of the Bible who 
have been inspired by its teaching; and 
by educating the pupils in the enlarged 
scope of the missionary movement in 
spreading the Gospel and unifying the 
nations. Thus it reaches out to bring 
more of the so-called secular activities 
within the influence of the Sunday 
school. 

3. Appointing Power. As to the au- 
thority by which officers and teachers are 
appointed, practice varies with the differ- 
ent churches. In some Protestant schools 
the pastor has both the power of appoint- 
ment and of dismissal. In the majority 
of cases the superintendent and officers 
are elected, sometimes by the local church 
board or committee, sometimes by the 
local board or committee in conjunction 
with the teachers. In Roman Catholic 
Sunday schools the priest, by virtue of 
his position, has entire authority, though 
his decisions may be set aside or revised 
by his ecclesiastical superiors. 

4, The Teacher’s Authority. In Protes- 


Authority 


tant Sunday schools the authority of the 
teacher in expounding the lesson to his 
class is the authority inherent in the 
truth of Scripture itself. He cannot 
justifiably appeal to any particular body 
of theological doctrine in support of his 
interpretation of the meaning of a pas- 
sage of Scripture. That might prove to 
be the substitution of an intermediate 
authority for the ultimate authority of 
Jesus Christ as expressed in his sayings, 
and in those of his apostles and prophets. 
The difficulty is largely overcome by in- 
structing the class in the great funda- 
mental Scriptural truths on which Chris- 
tian character is based, and whose clear 
application and interpretation demands 
unprejudiced and prayerful attention 
from the teacher. The critical discussion 
of difficult theological problems has no 
place with the pupils below the Senior 
Department of the Sunday school. The 
pupils are in the school to be led into 
the Christian belief, life, and practice 
during childhood and adolescence. If 
this truth be kept in mind by the teacher, 
questions as to the authority or the mean- 
ing of obscure passages, or disputed 
points of doctrine, are not likely to 


arise, 
J. W. RUSSELL. 


B 


B. L. B. SCOUTS.—Srr Boys’ Lire 
BRIGADE. 


BABYLONIA AND BABYLONIANS.— 
See Non-Curistian Scriptures; REtt- 
gious EpucaTion, ANCIENT, History OF. 


BACKWARD CHILDREN, PROMO- 
TION OF.—In a graded school where able 
pupils are promoted on the basis of work 
accomplished, as showing ability.to do 
more advanced work, the question of the 
backward children is a serious one. The 
problem, however, is largely solved when 
the cause of backwardness is discovered. 
The following are the principal causes 
with their respective treatments. 


1. Lack of Bible or other Sunday school 


knowledge previous to entering a gwen 
school. Asarule graded lessons are based 
more on the supposed tastes and needs of 
pupils of different ages than on presup- 
posed knowledge for any grade. There- 
fore a pupil who has general ability equal 
to his age should not be placed in a grade 
intended for people much younger than 
he. A general rule is to place such a pupil 
about one grade behind the grade of his 
age, 

"o. Day-school backwardness, as inability 
to read or to speak the language. When 
this backwardness is a matter of only a 
year or so it is usually better to keep the 
pupil where he can do the work of his 
class, especially if it is at the beginning 
of the Junior Department. At any age 
week-day school standing should only be 
considered in so far as it suggests inability 
_ to do the work of a Sunday-school grade, 
or as it upholds the Sunday-school teach- 
er’s opinion of the pupil’s general develop- 
ment. In such cases it should always be 
remembered that a person may be back- 
ward in school and quite advanced in gen- 
eral experience or spiritual life. 

3. Lack of response resulting from a 
temperamental misfit with the teacher. 
Occasionally personalities repel each other. 


Such a temperamental misfit between a 
teacher and a pupil is usually suggested 
by the fact that the pupil has done well 
under other teachers, either in all other 
subjects, or in the same subject previously. 
In such cases the pupil should be trans- 
ferred to some other teacher. If there is 
no other class in the same grade, and the 
inharmony is marked, the pupil should be 
put back or ahead one grade; for a slight 
misfit of grade is less harmful than a 
marked misfit with the teacher. 

4. Temporary lack of application result- 
ing from illness or any other temporary 
cause. Under this head are some of the 
most delicate questions the grader has to 
decide. If acute illness, home sorrow, or 
even prolonged summer travel, has re- 
sulted in giving the pupil older thoughts 
and deeper appreciation of Bible truths, 
it surely would be a mistake to put the 
pupil back for having lost certain lessons 
in Bible history or literature. On the 
other hand, if he is still weak or unable 
to apply himself, and has lost much 
work, the effort to take hold again 
may be discouraging. If the question 
arises in the middle of a school year it 
can often be decided by asking the pupil 
how he feels on the subject. At the be- 
ginning of a new school year the grader 
must consider how much has been lost, 
how much older the pupil seems, and how 
well he did before the temporary back- 
wardness, 

5. Lack of application owing to chronic 
laziness, lack of encouragement at home, 
or similar causes. With Junior pupils 
this is most frequently caused by not hay- 
ing definite study time at home, and it 
can often be cured by persuading the par- 
ents to have the child give a half-hour to 
his lesson every Friday or Saturday eve- 
ning, When, however, all efforts to help 
the pupil fail, it is usually wiser to put 
him back several grades for a day, or for 
a short time, letting him understand that 
it is done with the hope of arousing him. 


Badges 


If this or similar methods fail, the pupil 

should be left behind at the end of the 

year; but he should not be left back so as 

to go over any grade more than twice. 

Also, if he arouses permanently he should 
be helped to catch up to his appropriate 
rade. 

6. Mental deficiency or serious chronic 
illness. Pupils backward from these 
causes should be promoted, but only fast 
enough to be among the older members 
of their classes. Normal children usually 
understand that such a pupil is excep- 
tional and are not misled by his being 
promoted. Nevertheless, such pupils 
should not be kept too long with any one 
teacher or class. 

Marianna C. Brown. 


BADGES AND THEIR PURPOSE.— 
Such marks of distinction are an almost 
invariable accompaniment of Sunday- 
school conventions. They are usually of 
ribbon, worn upon the breast attached to 
the clothing by a pin, especially designed 
with some emblem or motto. Often upon 
this pin the name of city or state, and the 
date of convention, are given, The pur- 
pose of the badge is to create a convention 
spirit, to help those in attendance to iden- 
tify one another, and to bring the conven- 
tion and its object to the notice of the 
city in which it is held. 

The badge as used in the Sunday-school 
organization is usually a transient affair 
and not a permanent insignia as is the 
badge of the Boy Scouts, or many organ- 
izations, 

FRANKLIN McoELFResH. 


BALL, HANNAH (1733-92).—Born at 
High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. 
Her parents were in “moderate circum- 
stances” and had twelve children. At the 
age of five Hannah went to stay with her 
uncle, Mr. Norwood, at Uxbridge, “where 
I had every indulgence to feed my vanity. 
I refused answering to the call of 
‘Hannah,’ but to ‘Miss’ I was all atten- 
tion.” She learned by such experience 
“that pride, with folly, is bound up in the 
hearts of children,” and felt that guard- 
ians and parents were blessed who mark 
“this dangerous passion, and with proper 
temper apply both reason and revelation 
to counteract that deadly disease.” When 
she was nine she went to live with an- 


7 


Ball 


other uncle in High Wycombe. Her aunt 
taught her to retire every evening and 
pray. Five years were spent in Here- 
fordshire with a cousin of whose family 
she took charge. In 1759 she went to live 
with a brother who had lost his wife. The 
care of his home and four children filled 
all her time. In 1762 a sudden thunder- 
storm at midnight led to serious thought 
about religion, yet it was twelve months 
before she could withdraw from her gay 
companions. She heard much of the 
Methodists but thought “I would as soon 
go to hell as unite with the followers of 
John Wesley.” The sermons of Thomas 
Walsh, the Irish Methodist saint and 
scholar, who died in 1759, were published 
in 1764, and after she read them she 
longed to hear a Methodist preacher. 
Soon afterwards Wesley came to Wycombe 
and she heard him at five in the morning. 
His venerable appearance and his text 
(Matt. 15:28) deeply affected her. She 
began to attend the Methodist services, 
and after five months of strong convic- 
tion was led “to receive Christ in her 
heart, by loving faith.” She started a 
diary in 1766 at the time when she was 
greatly perplexed as to an offer of mar- 
riage. Wesley reminds her in 1789 how 
he advised her to break off her “connexion 
with an ungodly man.” For three months 
she had a hard conflict, but she never 
regretted her decision. Her correspond- 
ence with Wesley began in 1768, and more 
than twenty of his letters are given in her 
Memorr. 

In 1769, eleven years before Raikes 
(q. v.) began his experimentation in 
Sooty Alley, Gloucester, she opened a 
little Sunday school, the first in High Wy- 
combe. Her diary for June 3, 1770, the 
fifth anniversary of her conversion, says, 
“T desire to spend the remaining part of 
my life in a closer walking with God, and 
in labors of love to my fellow-creatures— 
feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, 
instructing a few of the rising generation 
in the principles of religion.” She had 
about thirty or forty pupils whom she 
heard read the Scriptures and repeat the 
catechism and the Collect for the day 
before she led them to the service in the 
parish church. So late as 1841 one of 
her pupils was living with the Rev. W. H. 
Havergal at Astley Rectory (Frances 
Ridley Havergal was then five) and could 


Bands of Hope 


point out the place where Miss Ball’s chil- 
dren used to sit in church. She tells Mr. 
Wesley (December 16, 1770), “the chil- 
dren meet twice a week, every Sunday and 
Monday. They are a wild little company, 
but seem willing to be instructed. I 
labor among them, earnestly desiring to 
promote the interest of the Church of 
Christ.” 

Her diary for May 4, 17%5, has this 
note, “In the meeting of the children, 
one about fourteen years of age, said she 


had found the love of Jesus shed abroad in’ 


her heart.” For years she continued her 
good work. Wesley writes on March 10, 
1782, “I wanted to know what has be- 
come of those little maidens; and trust 
some of them will bring fruit to perfec- 
tion. As you have a peculiar love for chil- 
dren, and a talent for assisting them, see 
that you stir up the gift of God which is 
in you. If you gain but one of them in 
ten you have a good reward for your 
labour.” His estimate of her zeal is shown 
by his suggestion to Miss Chapman of 
Wallington, Oxon., where the Society had 
been passing through “a wintry season,” 
“Cannot Hannah Ball step over for two 
or three days and kindle a flame among 
ou?” 

She died at the age of fifty-nine, and 
her funeral sermon was preached by the 
Rey. George Baldwin from Heb. 12: 14. 
Hannah Ball was a humble follower of 
Christ. Her invariable maxim was, “The 
copy ought to come as near the original 
as possible.” 

JOHN TELFORD. 

Reference: 

Cole, Joseph, comp. Memoir of Miss 

Hannah Ball. Rev. ed. (London, 

1839.) 


BANDS OF HOPE—Sre Svunpay 
ScHooL History, MippLE PERIoD oF; 


TEMPERANCE TEACHING IN THE §. S.. 


(Great BRITAIN). 


BANKSON, JOHN P. (d. 1820).—One 
of the founders of the Philadelphia Sun- 
day and Adult School Union, and its 
first corresponding secretary. He became 
a missionary to Liberia as agent of the 
United States under the direction of the 
American Colonization Society, and in 
1820, established there the first Sunday 


74 


Sf 


Banners 


school. After a short period of labor he 


died on the coast of Africa. W. A. Muhl- | 


enberg preached A Sermon in Memory of 
the Rev. Samuel Bacon and John P. 
Bankson, in St. James’s Church, Philadel. 
phia, 1820, 

S. G. Ayrgs, 


BANNERS, USE OF.—In parades, pic- 
nics, conventions, and other large gather- 
ings, banners for the Sunday school are 
used. They are made of bright-colored 
cloth, the more costly ones of silk. They 
usually display the name of the class or 
school, and are frequently carried on a 
staff. .They are often given as a prize 
for victory in athletic feats, for superior 
attendance, for reaching certain goals in 
classes or departments, especially in 
Junior or Intermediate grades. A banner 
in such a case is often held for a year, and 
then awarded again in competition to the 
class, department, or school attaining 
highest rank under the conditions laid 
down. 

Banners have been used with great effect 
by some state Sunday-school secretaries 
in promoting county organization. Cer- 
tain standards of efficiency, such as, 
number of organized classes, number of 
teacher training classes, home depart- 
ments, cradle rolls, delegates at state con- 
vention, etc., have received recognition 
by the public awarding of banners in the 
convention, There are usually several 
kinds, implying different grades of excel- 
lence, and the awarding of such banners 
in large conventions produces scenes of 
great enthusiasm and dramatic interest. 
The trophies thus given are the permanent 
possession of the county association to 
which they are given. 

The object of the banner is to promote 
energy and loyalty in organization, to 
offer a goal for definite tasks, to secure 
emulation and competition in friendly 
struggle for success. When they have thus 


been eagerly sought, their possession 18 


regarded as a prize of great value. 
In the parades which have marked the 
progress of men’s classes, banners have 


been a conspicuous feature, and in great 


national gatherings they are carried with 


pride by leaders of states or by classes of — 


a city or county. Large classes have awak- 


ened great enthusiasm when they counted — 
scores of men marching behind the banner | 


rag 


Baptismal Grace 


of their class. As a regiment follows its 
flag with cheers and devotion, the class of 
_the school learns to love a banner which is 
the symbol of its life and purpose. The 
display of great numbers of these in large 
parades and great gatherings gives a 
variety in color and movement which 
makes intense appeal to the marching 
spirit of young life. Such appeals may 
be abused, but the Sunday school which 
is seeking the child, the boy, the girl, and 
the young men, cannot afford to neglect 
‘that which pleases the eye and stirs the 
blood. 
FRANKLIN McELrresH. 


BAPTISMAL GRACE.—SEE CHILD’s 
CoMMUNION. 


BAPTIST BROTHERHOOD.—Sexr 
BROTHERHOOD MOVEMENT, 


_ BAPTIST CONVENTION IN CANADA, 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK OF THE.— 
Baptists in Canada date from the close of 
the American Revolution. About 1780, 
bodies of emigrants known as the United 
Empire Loyalists, finding themselves out 
of sympathy with the new order, removed 
to Canada and settled on lands granted 
by the British Government, which were 
‘mainly in the Maritime Provinces and 
especially in Nova Scotia. 
' Among these were a large number of 
Baptists, who, in some cases, were ac- 
companied by their pastors, and as they 
became settled in their new homes they 
organized churches. From this beginning 
‘the denomination has grown until the 
churches are found from Halifax to Van- 
couver, and the members number 150,- 
000. 
__ In the early days, the Baptists were not 
friendly toward religious education and 
Sunday-school work. In many cases the 
‘pastors and people were illiterate and did 
‘not realize the need of education, either 
secular or sacred. But wise leaders arose 
who wrought for better things; and to- 
day the Baptists have in Canada four 
colleges doing university work, and four 
‘secondary schools for both sexes. These 
schools and colleges are based on the 
religious idea, and Bible study is a defi- 
‘nite part of the curriculum. 

From the beginning these Canadian 


Baptist Convention in Canada 


Baptists were sympathetic toward Sun- 
day schools and established them every- 
where. Owing, however, to their intense 
enthusiasm for and absorption in their 
foreign mission enterprise, the Sunday 
school was not given a prominent place, 
and Sunday-school organization was 
neglected. 

The first to move for the betterment 
of the Sunday school was the Baptist Con- 
vention of Ontario and Quebec. In 1900 
a Sunday School Committee was appointed 
to direct the Sunday-school activities of 
the denomination, and the results were 
most gratifying. In 1905 a forward step 
was taken in the appointment of a General 
Superintendent; and since that appoint- 
ment the Sunday-school department has 
made steady and satisfactory progress. 
Moreover, the Sunday School Committee 
was given the standing of a Board of 
Convention and directs the whole program 
of religious education. The Canadian 
Baptists are not yet issuing any publica- 
tions in the interest of Sunday-school 
work, but are using those of the Ameri- 
can Baptist Publication Society. 

The Baptists of the other conventions 
are gradually falling into line as regards 
organization. The United Baptist Con- 
vention of the Maritime Provinces, ap- 
points annually a Committee on Sunday- 
school instruction, and has a General 
Superintendent permanently employed. ~ 
They have recently (1913) appointed a 
Field Secretary of Sunday schools, who 
is also to be lecturer on the subject of 
Sunday School Pedagagy in Acadia Uni- 
versity. The conventions of Manitoba, 
Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Co- 
lumbia, have similar committees and 
officers. | 

The present status of Sunday-school 
work in the denomination is encouraging. 
The people are responding to the appeals 
of the pastors and leaders, and are getting 
the Sunday-school vision. The administra- 
tion is vigorous and aggressive. More and 
more emphasis is being laid on organi- 
zation and evangelism; the organized 
Bible class and the secondary departments 
are strong and flourishing; the rank and 
file of the denomination are becoming 
aroused to the importance of the Sun- 
day school, and the outlook is exceedingly 
hopeful. 

P. K. Dayroot. 


Baptist Convention, Northern 


BAPTIST CONVENTION, NORTHERN, 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK OF THE.— 
From the beginning of Baptist work in 
North America there has been a strong 
and active sympathy with the principles of 
education in general, and particularly the 
religious education of the young. ‘The 
essential independence of Baptist churches 
makes it possible for the various depart- 
ments of work to proceed considerably in 
scattered localities before any general de- 
nominational organization is called into 
existence. The only organization that 
exists among Baptists is the voluntary co- 
operative association of churches in order 
to carry out in a general way the work in 
which the local churches are interested. 

Baptist Sunday schools were relatively 
numerous and strong before the denomina- 
tion attempted any special instruction in 
this ‘work, or ‘provision for its needs. 
There are authentic records of a school 
in Ephrata, Pa., as early as 1740. This 
school continued its work for thirty years 
until the time of the Revolutionary War. 
In 1804 the second Baptist Church of 
Baltimore, Md., began a Sunday school 
that was peculiar at the time in that re- 
ligious instruction was the sole object of 
the organization. But it was not until 
later that this form of religious education 
was officially recognized by the denomina- 
tion. 

An organization known as the New Eng- 
land Sabbath School Union was in opera- 
tion among the Baptists of the New Eng- 
land states in 1839. (See Denominational 
S. S. Missionary Extension.) That this 
organization was effective in its local work, 
but was not sufficient for the general needs 
of the denomination, is shown by the fact 
that in 1839 the Hudson River Associa- 
tion, in the State of New York, urged the 
denomination to organize a Baptist Sun- 
day School Union for the denomination 
at large. This proposition received favor- 
able discussion in the denominational 
press, and in 1840 the Baptist General 
Tract Society proposed amalgamation 
with the New England Sabbath School 
Union, but this was not accomplished 
until several years later. However, in order 
to further the idea of this union, the 
Baptist General Tract Society altered its 
constitution and changed its name to the 
“American Baptist Publication and Sun- 
day School Society,” and began an aggres- 


Baptist Convention, Northern | 


sive work in the interests of the Sunday 
schools, publishing books for children and 
investigating the needs of the Sunday 
schools of the denomination. The words 
“and Sunday School” were subsequently 
dropped out of the society’s name only 
because the long title was found to be too 
cumbersome. 

Under the stimulus of the Publication 
Society Sunday-school work grew rapidly, 
and there was a strong call for literature 
to meet the developing needs. At first 
the society published books for use in con- 
nection with Sunday-school work, but in 
1856 it purchased the entire effects of the 
New England Sabbath School Union, and 
began publishing a monthly juvenile paper 
entitled The Young Reaper, with a circu- 
lation of 50,000 copies. In 1860 a series 
of twenty question books was issued for 
Sunday schools, and in 1861, in addition 
to its own publications, the society selected 
and recommended Sunday-school books for 
use in Sunday-school libraries. 

In 1869 there was held in St. Louis, Mo., 
under the auspices of the American Bap- 
tist Publication Society, the first Baptist 
National Sunday School Convention. The 
large attendance from all sections of the 
United States, the strong character of the 
speakers and their addresses attested the 
wide spirit and intelligent interest de- 
veloped in the work of the Sunday schools 
at that time. This convention voiced a 
demand for a more advanced literature, 
which was already in contemplation by 
the society, and in January, 1870, there 
appeared the first issue of the magazine 
known as the Baptist Teacher. 

As a denomination the Baptists have re- 
garded their Sunday-school work as com- 
mitted to the American Baptist Publica- 
tion Society, and the society has always 
been in the forefront of Sunday-school 
advance. ‘The Society is now publishing 
a full series of helps for the Uniform Les- 
sons, and the Graded work from the Be- 
ginners’ Department to the Senior grade. 
Sunday-school papers are also published — 
by the society under the names Our Little 
Ones, Youth’s World, Girl’s World, Young 
People, and a general missionary paper 
entitled World-Wide. 

Among the important publications of — 
the society are the Superintendent and the . 
Baptist Teacher, and more recently Home — 
and School, a monthly magazine for the — 


a. re fc- 
fc: 


| 
Baptist Convention, Southern 


Home Department, which is unique in the 
field of Sunday-school literature. The 
high literary standard of all of this ma- 
terial is explained by the long continued 
editorial supervision of Dr. C. R. Blackall 
(qg. v.), who now has associated with him 
Rey. George T. Webb, D.D., in the direc- 
tion of this work, as well as a large force 
of editorial writers and assistants. 

The policy of the society has always 
been to secure and maintain the highest 
measure of efficiency in the Sunday-school 
work of the denomination, and to that 
end a great deal of care and independent 
attention has been given to the Graded 
Lessons as a recognized step forward in 
respect to both material and method. 
In 1907 the American Baptist Publica- 
tion Society inaugurated its National 

Teacher Training Institute, designed to 
train Sunday-school teachers in the knowl- 
edge of the Scriptures, the pupils, and 
the laws of teaching. This has since de- 
veloped and become the Educational De- 

_partment of the society, presided over by 
a special secretary and conducted through 
thirty-seven directors of Sunday-school 
work. This department has enrolled 27,010 

students in the teacher-training courses, 

“many of whom have received their diplo- 
mas, and there are now (1914) 13,993 

active students. 

_ The Sunday School work of the North- 

ern Baptist Convention, is in the hands 

of The American Baptist Publication So- 
ciety. A committee of the Convention, 
known as the Committee on Moral and Re- 
ligious Education, works in close and sym- 
pathetic codperation with the Society to 
advance religious education in the school 
and in other organizations of the church. 

At the meeting of the Northen Baptist 
Convention held in Boston, June, 1914, 
this Committee was authorized to appoint 
a special committee from its number to 
serve as a committee on lesson courses 
for Sunday schools and this sub-committee 

‘1s empowered to appoint one to represent 
the denomination on the International 

Sunday School Lesson Committee. 

. G. T. WeEsz. 


BAPTIST CONVENTION, SOUTHERN, 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK OF THE.—The 
Sunday-school work of the Southern Bap- 
tist Convention has its center in its Sun- 
day School Board, located at Nashville, 


Baptist Convention, Southern 


Tenn. This Board is also the denomina- 
tional publishing house. As a publishing 
house its interests are so organized that 
the larger part of the profit from its busi- 
ness is available for the work of extend- 
ing and improving the Baptist Sunday 
schools of the South. Its field force is 
entirely supported by the profits from the 
business and no direct contributions for 
this kind of work are solicited. There is 
the closest possible codperation and fellow- 
ship between the publishing and editorial 
interests and the men on the field. 

There are six field secretaries who 
give themselves entirely to the work of 
Sunday-school extension. ‘These men are 
finely equipped for their work, men of 
standing in the denomination and not 
connected in any way with the business 
part of the work. They are not expected 
to take collections to support their work. 
They are at the service of the churches, 
whether weak or strong, and go wherever 
there is work to be done. They do not 
confine themselves to any one district, but 
cover the general field of the-Convention. 

The teacher-training work of Southern 
Baptists is conducted through the Sunday 
School Board above mentioned and has its 
central office at the Nashville headquarters. 
The work is in charge of an Educational 
Secretary who has general direction of 
the work and supervises the keeping of 
records. The teacher-training work is 
based upon a Manual containing sections 
upon (1) Sunday-school history; (2) or- 
ganization; (3) methods of teaching; (4) 
child study; (5) an outline study of the 
Bible; (6) doctrine. Most of all the work 
is done in classes and the examination is 
from memory. Upon the successful com- 
pletion of the work in this Manual a 
diploma is given. This diploma has blank 
spaces of seven seals representing the 
seven books of the course, and for a large 
red seal and a large blue seal. It is known 
as an incomplete diploma. The course be- 
yond the Manual has seven books. When 
the first four of these have been completed 
a red seal is given and when all of the 
books have been completed and examina- 
tions passed upon them a blue seal is 
awarded. The diploma is then complete. 
At this writing (1914) over twenty thou- 
sand people hold the diploma, while some 
three or four thousand people have ob- 
tained the other seals. 


Baptist Convention, Southern 


In each of the fifteen states included 
in the constituency of the Southern Bap- 
tist Convention there is a Sunday-school 
secretary. ‘These men are not colporteurs 
nor missionaries, but are Sunday-school 
field men in the broadest sense of that 
term. They are doing the work of teacher- 
training and are working for general meth- 
ods. ‘These men are under the direction 
of the regularly constituted State Mission 
Boards, it being the policy of the Sunday 
School Board at Nashville not to aid men 
who are not thus directly connected with 
the regular missionary organizations of the 
various states. This is done to make the 
work permanent and to put it upon the 
hearts of the people as a part of their 
regular work. The Sunday School Board 
contributes to the salary of these men and 
has largely made possible their work. 

The work has taken on some distinc- 
tive characteristics. The commonly ac- 
cepted Sunday-school convention has 
largely passed out of existence. In its 
place for a state gathering has come a 
summer encampment where teaching work 
can be done in addition to the lectures 
and addresses. The old-fashioned insti- 
tute is still retained to some extent, only 
it is as a rule made a part of a tour in 
which several strong men group: them- 
selves together, going from one place to 
another and thus bringing close home to 
the churches a most effective Sunday- 
school program. ‘The chief emphasis, 
however, is being laid upon the training 
schools. In hundreds of places the state 
men combine with the general men of the 
Sunday School Board, perhaps utilizing 
members of the college and some one of 
the faculties in a week’s school. ‘The 
sessions begin in the afternoon and con- 
tinue through the night service, a simple 
supper being served. The training school 
is usually carried on for a week. Prac- 
tically all work is textbook teaching upon 
the basis of the regular teacher-training 
course. Certificates are usually awarded 
at the close of the school. This method 
has been found most effective in secur- 
ing practical results. 

Two things must be spoken of in con- 
nection with the work of Southern Bap- 
tists along Sunday-school lines. All the 
workers in the various states and those 
connected with the Sunday School Board 
at Nashville in various official capaci- 


g 


Baptist Convention, Southern : 


ties have organized themselves into a 
Field Workers’ Association. This Field 
Workers’ Association meets annually in 
connection with the Southern Baptist 
Convention. It elects its own officers and 
deals with nearly all matters of policy 


affecting the Sunday-school work in the | 


South. The plans and purposes of the 
Sunday School Board are here laid before 
the men from the various states. These 
men in the states have also the power to 
bring to the attention of the general 
workers any matters which they may deem 
essential. The administrative, editorial, 
business and educational departments are 
here brought in direct contact and co- 
operation with the forces on the field. 
The result is a solidarity in effort based 
upon an intelligent understanding of what 
is to be accomplished. The forces get 
together as one and concentrate along 
certain lines by common consent. There 
is a harmony between the field forces and 
the editorial forces by which they work 
together and for the same ends. ‘The 


other striking characteristic is that the 


work is organized altogether upon a de- 
nominational basis. The churches have 


tried to do everything for themselves that — 


the denomination needs for its Sunday 
schools. ‘This does not mean that there 
is no cooperation with interdenomina- 
tional organizations, but it does mean 
that such codperation is free and is not 
the codperation of dependence but of in- 
dependence. The Baptists of the South 


have been taught to rely upon their own 


Board to bring to them the best in modern 
Sunday-school methods and to do the 
work of enlistment and _ organization 
through their own denominational ma- 
chinery. ; 
It remains only to be said that th 

publishing department of the Sunday 
School Board issues a full and complete 
line of -periodicals for the uniform and 
the graded lessons. For the graded les- 
sons the denomination has its own peri- 
odicals throughout, following in general 
the outlines of the International Lesson 
Committee for what is known as the 
strictly Biblical series. The Southern 
Baptist Convention, however, in 1911 ap- 
pointed a Lesson Committee. This com- 


mittee has supervised the outlines for the 


graded lessons and has made very con- 
siderable changes, especially in the lessons 


: 
Baptist 8. S. (Great Britain) 


for the Intermediate Department. The 
International Uniform Lesson is also sub- 
jected to the same scrutiny and is subject 
to such changes as may be deemed best 
to make it effective for the denomination. 
The Board publishes most of its own 
teacher-training books and has an Adult 
Department with full supplies for its own 
classes. An effort is being made to have 
all adult classes registered and no little 
success is being attained along this line. 
I. J. VAN NEss. 


BAPTIST SUNDAY SCHOOLS (GREAT 
BRITAIN ).—In 1721, the Baptist Chapel 
in Oxford was restored and used for what 
was almost the earliest Sunday school in 
the land. In 1730 and 1762, boarding and 

_ day schools with religious instruction, and 
probably with Sunday classes, were formed 
in Lancashire and Yorkshire, the progen- 
itors of Rawdon and Midland Baptist 
Colleges. Then came Raikes, and Sunday 
schools sprang up and grew without the 
aid, often without the sympathy, of the 
ministers and officers of the churches. 
(See Raikes, Robert.) At the time that 
William Carey and his colleagues under- 
took the task of forming a missionary 
society outside the official Baptist Associa- 
tions, unknown men and women in unau- 
thorized ways were making trial of this 
‘new popular method of home mission 
work. In 1811 an Annual Meeting of the 
-Sunday-school delegates was called, at 
which 3% General Baptist schools were 
reported with 3700 pupils, with 585 
voluntary teachers and 50 assistants. The 
Particular Baptists, a far more numerous 
section, held doctrinal views that made 
them much more suspicious of education 
and of the Sunday-school idea. Dr. 
Joseph Ivimey, whose four volume History 
of the English Baptists was published 
1811-30, ignores Sunday schools though 
one had been formed by a lady in his own 
church in London, in 1810. At the 
formation of the Baptist Union of Great 
Britain and Ireland in 1813, among the 
various objects to be promoted there was 
/no mention of the Sunday school. Many 
of these schools met in the chapels or in 
underground rooms, but were not an in- 
_tegral part of church work; others were 
started in new districts and prepared the 
_ way for the formation of churches. 
Teachers were sometimes hired, and 


v9 


Baptist 8. 8. (Great Britain) 


parents paid 1d or 2d to send their chil- 
dren. As a typical case the College Lane 
School, Northampton, may be quoted. 
Formed in 1810, it took the place of an 
earlier school conducted for the Independ- 
ent, Baptist and Quaker congregations, to 
whose meetings in turn the pupils were 
taken by two teachers who were paid prob- 
ably 1/6 per Sunday. In 1812 the Sun- 
day school was transferred into a new day 
school building, and seventy teachers of 
all denominations freely gave their serv- 
ices. The school started at 9 o’clock on 
Sunday morning and the lessons consisted 
mainly of reading and writing—slates, 
pencils, sponges, books, being the chief 
requisites. At 10:30 the pupils were 
marched into the chapel where they sat 
for the hymns, and stood for the prayers 
with their backs turned to the congre- 
gation. School resumed at 1:30, closing 
at 4, and in the evening all over eight 
years of age were taken again to public 
service. There was the system of alter- 
nate teachers, and the chief religious in- 
struction was in the memorizing of Scrip- 
ture, catechism (a Baptist revision of the 
Shorter Catechism), and Watts’ hymns. 
The first statistics of Baptist Sunday 
schools appear to have been gathered in 
1836, when 58,788 pupils were reported, 
this being not quite 1,000 less than the 
number of church members. There was 
steady growth till the end of the last cen- 
tury. To-day (1914) there are over 3,000 
schools, 60,200 teachers, and 552,700 
pupils—a slight drop from the record 
figures of 1906. About one-fourth of the 
416,000 members of the Baptist churches 
are enrolled as teachers or senior pupils. 
The largest school is at the Metropolitan 
Tabernacle, London, having 1;080 pupils, 
and 15 mission schools, with 5,750 pupils. 
The denomination has not carefully fos- 
tered this work. Probably the hearty co- 
operation of Baptists in the Sunday 
School Union since its formation in 1803, 
gave the impression that no other agency 
was needed. Perhaps also their ultra-inde- 
pendency created a natural hesitation 
among the leaders to assume any kind of 
control over this vast, but irregular body. 
No official responsibility was undertaken 
until a Young People’s department was 
formed in 1909, followed by a special 
Sunday School Committee. 

Little has yet been done to regularize 


Baptist Union Great Britain 


teaching material or method to the spe- 
cial purposes of Baptist doctrine and prac- 
tice. In the main, simple Bible teaching 
is given, the International Lessons being 
generally used. But the schools are 
steadily adopting modern reformed meth- 
ods. Among well-known friends of the 
movement may be named Dr. Joseph 
Angus, president of Regents Park College, 
first “Ridley Lecturer”; Dr. F. B. Meyer, 
ex-president of the World’s Sunday School 
Association; Mr. Charles Waters, founder 
of the International Bible Reading Asso- 
ciation; Rev. Carey Bonner, secretary of 
the Sunday School Union; and Alderman 
George White, M. P., an ex-president of 
the Union. 
ARTHUR BLACK. 
References: 
Ridley lectures. The Relation of the 
Ministry to the Young. 
Essays by Price and Ruth. Our Bap- 
tist Sunday Schools, (6 vol.) 1909. 


BAPTIST UNION OF GREAT BRIT- 
AIN AND IRELAND.—Sere Baprist 
SunDAY ScHOOLs (GREAT BRITAIN.) 


BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE’S UNION 
OF AMERICA.—The Baptist Young 
People’s Union of America is the outcome 
of a strong denominational conviction 
which had grown up side by side with the 
large and enthusiastic interdenomina- 
tional movement for the training of youth. 
From the expression of this feeling in 
letters and circulars, a weekly paper ap- 
peared urging the gathering of Baptist 
young people together into departments of 
local churches for the purpose of instruc- 
tion in Baptist principles and history, as 
well as for devotion. The first large asso- 
ciation among Baptist young people’s 
societies was the state convention of Ne- 
braska, in 1889. Most of the promoters 
were active in Christian Endeavor soci- 
eties. ‘They came together on the broad 
ground of federation and fellowship. 
Their statement of policy clearly an- 
nounced that “we shall assist in organiz- 
ing young people’s societies where none 
exist, but we shall never insist upon the 
adoption of any particular constitution.” 
The federation idea was accepted or par- 
alleled almost without exception by the 
nine states that were represented at the 
first convention in Chicago, in 1891. 


Baptist Young People’s Union 


At this convention plans were formu- 
lated for the federation of all Baptist 
young people’s societies in the United 
States and Canada in a common union for 
enlistment and enlightenment along de- 
nominational lines. “The object of the 
organization shall be the unification of 
Baptist young people; their increased spir- 
ituality; their stimulation in Christian 
service; their edification in Scripture 
knowledge; their instruction in Baptist 
doctrine and history; and their enlist- 
ment in all missionary activity through 
existing denominational organization,” 
The conventions that have followed year 
by year have shown great power and en- 
thusiasm and a faithful working out of 
the first principles of the Union. 

The mission of the Union at its incep- 
tion was principally educational, and 
hence its study courses have been an im- 
portant feature in its work and plans. In 
the early organ, The Young People’s 
Union, the “Study Hour” was an im- 
portant department. This has matured 
into the Christian culture courses which 
consist of three lines of study worked out 
and recommended by the Union; the Bible 
Readers’ Course, Sacred Literature 
Course, and the Conquest Missionar 
Course. Advanced Courses in Biblical, 
doctrinal, and missionary subjects are 
also offered. Examinations have been 
given in all these courses, thousands hay- 
ing availed themselves of these opportu- 
nities and secured certificates and di- 
plomas. 

The weekly paper was changed to a 
monthly in 1904, and the name Service 
was adopted. By the action of the Board 
of Managers in 1912, the educational work 
of the B. Y. P. U. A., including the 
courses of study and the literature relat- 
ing to the same, was handed over to the 
direction of the Young People’s Commis- 
sion of the Northern Baptist Convention. 

The general organization is a fraternal 
union serving to unite all young people’s 
societies in Baptist-churches having a de- 
votional and missionary purpose. The 
societies of the Southern states are 
ecclesiastically allied to the Southern Bap- 
tist Convention as the Northern societies 
are attached to the Northern Baptist Con- 
vention, The various conventions of 
Canada exercise an oversight of their 
young people’s work. States and prov- 


- Baraca-Philathea 


 jnces and cities maintain organizations of 
- local societies and occupy a subsidiary 
relation to the International Union. 

The headquarters of the Union are at 
107 South Wabash avenue, Chicago, 
 Tilinois, and Service is published at 1701 
Chestnut street, Philadelphia, Pa., by the 
American Baptist Publication Society. 
The General Secretary is Rev. W. HE. 
Chalmers. 

W. E. CHatmMers. 


BARACA-PHILATHEA BIBLE 
CLASSES.—Great strides have been made 
within twenty years in reaching out and 
enlisting the young men and women in 
the ranks of the Sunday school. One 
branch of this great work has been done 
through the men’s Baraca and the wom- 
en’s Philathea Bible classes. There are 
now registered over 9,000 of these classes 
with a membership of nearly one million, 
found in every state of the United States, 
and in thirty-two denominations. 

The name “Baraca” was given to a 
small Bible class of eighteen men on 
October 20, 1890, in Syracuse, N. Y. 
“Baraca” is derived from a Bible word 
_ “Beracah,” found in II Chron. 20:26, and 
means blessing. ‘This class believed in 
the value of organization and in adapting 
the principles of business life to the 
_ Christian life. During the history of 
this class over 500 men have united with 
the church, which has grown from 200 
to more than 1,700 members. Over 800 
of these members have come from the 
Baraca and Philathea Bible classes. 

The World-Wide  Baraca-Philathea 
_ Union, with headquarters at Syracuse, 
N. Y., was a result. Many classes may 
be found in foreign lands, and at the 
present time a million pieces of literature 
printed in Italian, Japanese, and Span- 
ish are yearly distributed free from the 
headquarters. 

The Philathea movement was an out- 
- come of the Baraca and was formed five 
years later in the same church. The word 
_“Philathea” is a Greek word suggested 
by the pastor, and means lovers of truth. 
Their work is similar to that of the men’s 
Baraca classes. They belong to the Na- 
tional Union and have enrolled over 300,- 
000 women. 

These two classes have had no trained 
or paid men to direct their affairs and 


Baraca-Philathea 


prepare their literature. The work has 
been voluntary and carried on by busi- 
ness men who have seen the vision of a 
“million men and women” studying the 
Bible and going forth to bring others 
to a decision. 

Mr. Marshall A. Hudson of Syracuse, 
N. Y., was the founder of’ these classes. 
The purpose is the study of the Bible at 
stated hours in the Sunday schools of 
which the members are a part. ‘The two 
adjunct aims are social life, and a deep 
spiritual purpose. For these ends the 
organization has its committees, and eve- 
nings set apart during the week, in order 
that the members may work out the na- 
tional motto, “We do things” (Phil. 
14:13). As the platform of this organ- 
ization is “Young men, or women, stand- 
ing by the Bible and the Bible school,” 
every class must be loyal to its own Sun- 
day school and church and denomination. 
In the interests of the social life of the 
classes the rooms in which they meet are 
seldom closed during the week. Socials, 
business meetings, Bible clubs, lecture 
courses, and other entertainments of a 
spiritual and intellectual nature, consti- 
tute the program of these meetings. A 
strong class spirit is thus stimulated, as 
well as by wearing the class pins. 


“BARACA” 


W hat It Means 





In order to win men and women to the 
Christian life by means of the Sunday 
school their social needs must be served 
and they must be touched during the week 


PHILATHEA 





as well as on Sunday. Baraca and Phi- 
lathea rooms are necessary and should be 
kept available to the classes, with the 
privilege of meeting every night, 


Barnes 


The spiritual life of the class is fos- 
tered by means of Bible study, and the 
secret service for prayer is formed in 
each class. A band of young men and 
women unite to pray secretly every day 
for six months for the unconverted mem- 
bers of the class and at a suitable time to 
speak to those for whom they are praying. 
The pledges may be used in any class and 
may be obtained by applying to Mr. Hud- 
son. 

The secret service is supplemented in 
many classes by midweek Bible study, 
sometimes called “dining-table Bible 
_ clubs.” The clubs have many different 
ways of studying the Bible. A prayer 
service is held before the meeting and 
evangelistic work is discussed for a few 
minutes at the close. Many of these 
classes have continued for years and their 
graduates are found in the ministry and 
in missionary work in all parts of the 
world. 

Other classes already formed which do 
not have the name Baraca or Philathea, 
connect themselves with the organization 
and obtain its helps by adding the word 
Baraca or Philathea to their present 
names and by embodying the rules and 
aims of the organization in their consti- 
tutions. There are Junior Baraca and 
Junior Philatheas, and some of the older 
classes call themselves Sunshine Phi- 
latheas, a Purpose Baraca, the Wesley 
Baraca Class, the Epworth Baraca Class, 
etc. This entitles the class to all the free 
literature and to a representation in all 
the meetings of the National Union. 

A full history of the national move- 
ment cannot be here recorded, but some 
of the results may be learned from the 
report which was given at the Norfolk 
Convention in 1912. 

M. A. Hupson. 


BARNES, ALBERT (1798-1870).— 
Clergyman and noted commentator. 
Born in Rome, N. Y., 1798. He was grad- 
uated from Hamilton College, Clinton, 
N. Y., in 1820, and attended Princeton 
Theological Seminary, taking the three 
years’ course. He had a long ministry, 
but was pastor of only two churches—in 
1825, becoming pastor of the Presbyterian 
Church of Morristown, N. J.; in 1830, 
he was called by the First Presbyterian 
Church of Philadelphia, Pa. The first 


82 Bedell 


two anniversaries of the American Sun- 
day School Union were held in his church 
in Philadelphia. 

Mr, Barnes was a promoter of Sunday 
schools; he warned parents, however, of 
the danger of consciously or uncon- 
sciously transferring to the Sunday school 
their own responsibility in the religious 
education of their children. 

His Notes, Explanatory and Practical 
on the Gospels; designed for Sunday 
School Teachers and Bible Classes were 
translated into foreign languages, as well 
as being extensiyely used by Sunday- 
school teachers in America. Mr. Barnes’ 
Iife at Three-score and Ife at Three- 
score and Ten are charming autobiog- 
raphies. He was the author of many 
works, but his fame rests upon his Com- 
mentaries. 

He died suddenly in Philadelphia, De- 
cember 24, 1870. 

S. G. AYREs. 


BEDELL, GREGORY TOWNSEND 
(1793-1834) —Episcopal clergyman ; born 
on Staten Island, October 28, 1793. He 
was graduated from Columbia College in 
1811. He was ordained for the ministry 
in 1814 and became rector at Hudson, 
N. Y.; Fayetteville, N. C.; and Philadel- 
phia, Pa., where his celebrated preaching 
founded and built up St. Andrew’s 
Church. , Dr. Bedell was the author of 
several books, sacred poems and musical 
compositions, some of which were written 
for use in the Sunday schools. He was 
an enthusiastic and successful worker in 
the Sunday school, and he prepared and 
published a detailed history of the Sunday 
schools of his church. 

Dr. 8. H. Tyng says of him: “Perhaps 
no clergyman in the United States, of 
any denomination, has paid more atten- 
tion to the establishment and instruction 
of Sunday schools, or has been more suc- 
cessful in sustaining and keeping up their 
usefulness and efficiency.” 

In 1827 Dr. Bedell established what was 
regarded as being “the first Infant Sun- 
day school known in the United States.” 
He considered that “with the success of 
the Sunday-school operations of a church, 
its spiritual welfare is indissolubly con- 


33 
Ce S. G. AYREs. 
Reference: ‘ 
Tyng, S. H. Memotr of the Rev. 


| 
| Beecher 


Gregory T. Bedell, D.D. Ed. 2, enl. 
(Philadelphia, 1836.) 


BEECHER, LYMAN (1775-1863).— 
Distinguished Congregational minister. 
Born in New Haven, Conn., October 2, 
1775. He was graduated from Yale in 
1797. Dr. Beecher was pastor of Con- 
-gregational churches in Hast Hampton, 
L. I.; Litchfield, Conn.; Hanover Church, 
-Boston, Mass. In 1832 he removed to 
Cincinnati, Ohio, and for twenty years 
“was president and professor of theol- 
ogy in Lane Theological Seminary, a 
Presbyterian institution. In 1833 he was 
“installed as pastor of the Second Pres- 
byterian Church of Cincinnati.” Dr. 
Beecher was the father of a large family; 
several of his children achieved distinc- 
tion, He was much interested in the 
furtherance of the Sunday-school move- 
ment, and aided it in every way possible; 
he interested many wealthy persons, and 
through them added to the resources of 
the movement. Dr. Beecher’s sermon on 
the “Waste Places of New England,” de- 
livered in 1814, had a powerful influence 
In stimulating systematic religious in- 
struction through the Sunday school and 
during the decade following much pro- 
gress was made. He died in Brooklyn, 
N. Y., 1863. 
| S. G. AYRES. 
Reference: 

Haywood, E. F. Lyman Beecher. 
(Boston, 1904.) 


BEGINNERS’ DEPARTMENT, THE.— 
In the early days of the Sunday school 
there were but two divisions, the main 
‘school and the “infant class,” the so-called 
“infants” ranging in age from two to nine 
years, or even more. ‘Teachers struggled 
to interest and instruct them all in the 
‘same subject, which sometimes appealed 
to the older and again to the younger 
children. Kindergarten methods were 
interchanged with those suitable to third 
or fourth grade, as attention flagged in 
first one group and then another. “Golden 
texts” were taught the older children, 
which in word or thought conveyed little 
meaning to the little ones. Motion songs 
were sung with zest by the smaller chil- 
dren and with shame-faced self-conscious- 
ness by those eight or nine years of age. 

Discontent at this state of affairs began 


83 


Beginners’ Department 


to spread throughout the country; un- 
favorable comparison was made between 
the Sunday school and the public-school 
system, and at conventions, institutes, 
conferences and through the press the sub- 
ject was agitated until a somewhat gen- 
eral agreement was reached to separate 
the children under six from the older 
pupils. In small schools the youngest 
ones form merely a class; in large schools 
a department. In order to avoid confu- 
sion with the nomenclature of the secular 
kindergarten, this department is termed 
the Beginners’ Department. 

The ages of the children composing the 
Beginners’ Department correspond to 
those in the kindergarten, and the divi- 
sion between that and the Primary De- 
partment is made because of certain char- 
acteristics common to little children, 
which are outgrown or modified as they 
become older. Such characteristics de- 
mand not only peculiar methods of teach- 
ing, but subjects suited to meet the needs 
indicated by these characteristics. A sur- 
vey of the little child as he is at this 
age is necessary in order to appreciate the 
function of the Beginners’ Department. 

As the name “Beginners” implies, the 
pupil in this department of the Sunday 
school is starting out on the road to 
knowledge, and his very ignorance makes 
the teaching here a task unlike that in any 
other grade. His world is a very limited 
one—his home, father and mother, broth- 
ers and sisters, possibly nurse and serv- 
ants; those coming from outside to min- 
ister to his wants, such as the grocer, 
the milkman and the postman; playmates 
and neighbors; his pets, birds, flowers 
and all the fascinating out-of-doors. 
Whatever new knowledge is brought to 
him must be interpreted in terms of his 
little world. Thus God is to him the 
heavenly Father; God’s care signifies his 
breakfast and his warm coat, and the 
breakfast and coat of small outdoor broth- 
ers; humaneness means care of his pets; 
and social service consists of helpful 
deeds done in the home. 

Their very ignorance makes fear com- 
mon to these little ones. A necessary pro- 
tection is this natural fear, for, as to 
animals who have no weapons of defense 
is given the instinct of flight, so fear of 
strangers, of swiftly moving objects, of 
loud noises, and of the dark prove the 


Beginners’ Department 


preservation of helpless children, and 
these especial fears cease as the child 
grows in knowledge. However, the fear 
that is unreasoning and terrorizing be- 
comes greatly calmed by the consciousness 
that a powerful, loving heavenly Father 
is not only the creator of all things, but 
guides the forces of the world and cares 
for and guards his creatures. Through 
such teaching the child gains confidence 
and a sense of protection. The thunder 
and the lightning lose half their terrors 
with the realization that they are under 
God’s law. The wind seems less fearful 
when it is known that “He causeth his 
wind to blow.” The waves on the beach 
have a stopping place, for “The sea is his, 
and he made it.” Round about are the 
strong yet tender arms of One who 
fashions the smallest flower and clothes 
the birds in feathers. 

It is difficult to give the little child this 
belief. He is observant of everything in 
the world around him and is filled with 
curiosity. The wondering eyes of early 
childhood are an index to its attitude 
toward the universe. “What? Why? 
Where?” the little child asks. “Where 
does the rain come from?” he wonders. 
“Who changed the bud into a red rose?” 
“Who could get up in the sky, to fasten on 
the stars?” He attempts to discover the 
origin of things by tracing them back. 
“Who made the very first bird?” he 
queries. “Who took care of the first 
baby?” And not alone “I wonder” do his 
soulful eyes say, but also “I believe you.” 
Pleading for an answer, when it comes 
that answer is, must be the right one. 
When the cause of the things that roused 
his wonder—the beginning of all, the 
source of each gift that makes him happy 
—is named, whether the name be God or 
the heavenly Father, he is_ satisfied. 
Wonder is satisfied easily because of his 
credulity, and the result is trust. 

In but a moment the child’s credulous, 
wonder-filled eyes are sparkling and every 
part of his body is in motion. For he is 
only occasionally a contemplative person- 
age. His normal state is to be full of 
activity. He requires an active religion 
and so he is inspired to be helpful, to do 
kind deeds for those he loves, to codper- 
ate with God in tender, every day care 
for bird and beast. He is taught that 
friendship means service, that love neces- 


A 


ences the method of teaching. 


Long 


| 


Beginners’ Department | 


sitates action. His constant activity influ- | 


periods are banished and frequent change — 


is made from story to song, from song to 
conversation, from conversation to hand- 
work. Small bodies are rested by simple 
physical exercises, the wandering atten- 
tion caught by variety in the way of pre- 
senting the subject, and the mandate 
“don’t” replaced by the request “do.” 

This activity is not only physical but 
mental. One way it is shown is in mimic- 
ing the action of the world in which the 
child finds himself, and through imitation 
gaining an intimate knowledge of the per- 
sons and things imitated. (See Imita- 
tion, The Place of, in Religious Educa- 
tion.) Another mental activity is a vivid 
imagination. (See Imagination, The 
Child’s Power of.) He fancies himself 
other than he is; he lives in a play world; 
he pictures people and events that are 
described to him. Because of these qual- 
ities he is taught through stories which 
present action that it is possible for him 
to imitate, in spirit if not always liter- 
ally. Thus Christ is presented, not pri- 
marily as a redeeming Saviour or a won- 
derworker, but as the great helper, who 
changed unhappiness to happiness, and 
who brought cheer and comfort, so that 
the child may be inspired to be a little 
helper and reflect something of the kind- 
ness of Christ’s loving heart. Thus stories 
are told of children and men and women 
who act upon impulses it is possible to 
arouse in a child. The dawning powers 
of imitation and imagination are further 
utilized in the child’s religious education 
by letting him represent the flowers, the 
trees and the birds that are made and 
cared for by the heavenly Father, and im- 
itate the turning of the windmill as God’s 
wind moves it, or the falling of the snow- 
flakes which God sends as the earth’s 
coverlid. 


Another way in which the little child 


is a beginner is in self-control. His fits 


of anger sometimes amount to unbridled 


passion. He seems more like a little 
beast than a human being. He cannot 
understand why he should not have every- 
thing he wants and falls into a rage in 
his disappointment. He is the slave of 


each passing emotion, of each fleeting 


feeling. It is neither the intention nor 


the desire of a wise teacher to eliminate 


Beginners’ Department 


all capacity for anger. She does not wish 


— to produce a flabby, resistless set of beings. 


Anger toward wrong, resistance to evil, 
passionate outcry against injustice—all 
this should be preserved in the children. 


But their angry impulses require guid- 


ance; they must be taught to be masters, 
not slaves of their feelings. First steps in 


self-control are taken in the Beginners’ 


Department. The atmosphere of the 


home is retained, yet so colored by that of 


the school that a certain degree of order is 
required. The story must be attended to 
quietly; one child must wait for another 
in the period for conversation; directions 
for rising, or sitting, or marching, must 
be followed. Stories are told of unselfish 
friends, who gave up their own way for 


_ each other, of people who restrained them- 
selves to give happiness. 


The affectionate nature of little chil- 
dren is considered here—not the love that 


is capable of great self-sacrifice, nor the 
_ love that can appreciate all the qualities 


of the people who inspire it; not the love 
that is proof against absence and time; 
but an affection for those who minister to 


the child’s comfort which is very real, 


very intense, and which shows itself in a 


desire for physical nearness, in endear- 


ments, and occasional baby gifts. 


| great appeal. 


It is 
this quality of love to which is made the 
If the little child loves his 


parents largely because they minister to 
_his comfort and happiness, the realiza- 
tion that God is the source of daily bless- 
Ings will awaken love for him, and it is 


only through love that true thanksgiving 
and praise are possible, or that worship 
is spontaneous. Kindness, obedience, and 


helpfulness are taught as the natural re- 
sponse to love, rather than enjoined as 


duties. Love of God and love of good are 


_the goals to which the teacher of Begin- 


ners strives to attain—not adequate 
knowledge and comprehending affection 


for God, not unswerving adherence to 
_ good, but a sincere love for God in so far 


as a little child can conceive of him in 


his relation to himself, and attraction 
toward goodness, so far as a little child 
ean understand it, and this will guarantee 
an effort, even though fitful, to attain it. 


} 


a 


_his easily impressionable senses. 


Another characteristic of the child is 
It is 
hecessary to appeal to these senses in 
teaching. Thus pictures and objects form 


Beginners’ Department 


an important part of the equipment; 
color appears in both pictures and room 
decorations; much is made of music; and 
progressive teachers utilize also the sense 
of touch, encouraging the children to 
handle objects, and to see pictures with 
fingers as well as with eyes. Thus one 
truth is fixed more deeply by being im- 
pressed in a variety of ways—through 
appeal to eye, ear, and finger-tip. 

Another quality of early childhood, 
which makes the teacher’s task both easy 
and dangerous, is the extreme suggesti- 
bility shown by children of the Beginners’ 
age. ‘The teacher who sees the possibil- 
ities in this tendency makes discipline 
largely a matter of “Do this” rather than 
“Don’t do that.” The element of danger 
comes in making suggestions that are so 
readily acted upon. 

Such, in general, are the characteristics 
common to little children, that make the 
Beginners’ Department necessary and de- 
termine its teaching. In order that this 
teaching be assured and systematic, a 
Beginners’ course of lessons is essential. 
Several such courses are in existence, the 
best known being One Year of Sunday 
School Lessons for Young Children, by 
Florence U. Palmer; Bible Lessons for 
Inttle Beginners, by Margaret J. Cush- 
man Haven; The Sunday Kindergarten, 
Game, Gift and Story, by Carrie S. 
Ferris; Kindergarten Course of Study 
from An Outline of a Bible School Cur- 
riculum, by George W. Pease; and the 
Beginners’ Course of the International 
Graded Lessons. These courses are alike 
in covering either one or two years, in 
being topical rather than chronological, 
and in using almost entirely as story 
material either the Bible or nature. The 
International Beginners’ Course, which 
supersedes a former Beginners’ Course 
issued in 1902, was published in 1908, as 
a part of a series of graded lessons. The 
lessons are more simple than those in the 
course first issued, in order that there 
may be a proper progression in the graded 
courses. 

This course of lessons, being the one 
generally used in the Beginners’ Depart- 
ment, deserves some comment. It is based 
upon the needs of little children deter- 
mined by their salient characteristics. It 
commences in October and takes into con- 
sideration the year with its changing sea- 


Beginners’ Department 


sons and its festival days, which are so 

important in the child’s thought. The 

themes for the two years show the sim- 

plicity of the course and how it is planned 

to meet the child’s instinctive needs. 
Themes for the First Year: 


I. The Heavenly Father’s Care. 
II. Thanksgiving for Care. 
III. Thanksgiving for God’s Best Gift. 
IV. Love Shown Through Care. 
V. The Loving Care of Jesus. 
VI. God’s Care of Life. 
VII. Our Part in the Care of Flowers 
and Birds. 
VIII. Duty of Loving Obedience. 

IX. Love Shown by Prayer and Praise. 
X. Love Shown by Kindness (to 
Those in the Family Circle). 
Love Shown by Kindness (to 

Those Outside the Family). 
Themes for the Second Year: 

I. Our Heavenly Father’s Protection. 
IJ. Thanksgiving for Protection. 
IIf. Thanksgiving for God’s Best Gift. 
TV; 


bE 


in Nature. 
V. God Helping to Protect. 
VI. Jesus the Helper and Saviour. 
VII. Jesus Teaching to Pray. 
VIII. God’s Gift of Life. 
IX. God’s Gift of the Wind, Sun, and 
Rain. 
X. Jesus Teaching How to Help. 
XI. Children helping. 
XII. Friendly Helpers. Instances of 
1. Individual help. 
2. Interchange of help. 
3. Codperation in helpfulness. 


Although arranged under themes, this 
and. all Beginners’ courses are story 
courses, the stories being connected by 
topics rather than following an historical 
sequence. The sense of time has not yet 
dawned in the child’s mind, so to follow 
one story on such a subject as helpfulness, 
or kindness, or obedience, by a second and 
third on the same subject is more im- 
portant than to tell the stories in the order 
of their happening. 

A Beginners’ Department in session 
much resembles a large family at the 
story-telling hour. The stories are short, 
for the active small bodies cannot keep 
quiet many minutes, but when the story is 
vividly told by a real story-teller, rapt 
attention and quaint comment are se- 


Our Heavenly Father’s Protection . 


a. 


86 Beginners’. Department 


cured. Story-telling is considered an art 
by a teacher of Beginners, and many story- 
telling clubs have been formed to aid in 
its perfection. (See Bible Stories for 
Children; . Stories and Story-Telling; 
Story Tellers’ League.) 

The story-telling is preceded by a 
“circle talk,” so called, because the chil- 
dren talk freely, as they sit in the magic 
circle that lends informality and a home- 
hike atmosphere to this section of the Sun- 
day school. This conversation period is 
educative. While it is free from the stiff- 
ness of formal question and answer, yet 
it is somewhat directed. The natural re- 
marks of the children are not only per- 
mitted but coveted, in order that they 
may feel at liberty to express themselves 
in an unrestrained fashion. However, the 
teacher tactfully guides the conversation 
into the theme of the day. Any chance 
remark that fits into this theme she 
quickly turns to account; though one that — 
is foreign’ to it is received pleasantly but 
she lets it drop after a moment’s com- 
ment. (See Pedagogy.) By question, 
suggestion, or tactful introduction of the 
theme, is elicited the kind of conversation 
that will help to impress it. The children — 
name with eagerness the gifts of God for 
which they are glad, or his creatures which 
they have helped to protect, or the helpful 
deeds they have done at home. The story - 
of the preceding lesson is told by them in 
connection with this conversation—not 
fluently, but in detached words, assisted 
by gesture, and perhaps by crude draw- 
ings. Songs that illustrate and impress 
the theme and Bible verses are inter- 
spersed, till the whole forms an intimate, 
instructive, and helpful period, which is — 
no less interesting and important than 
the story itself. 

The remainder of the hour consists of 
a simple greeting and dismissal, sponta- 
neous and childlike prayers, and needful 
rest exercises. The program, in a properly 
conducted Beginners’ Department is so 
carefully concealed and the homelike at- 
mosphere so apparent, that to an ordinary 
observer there seems to be none; but song, 
conversation, Bible verses, prayers, story- 
telling, and all the rest follow one another 
so naturally as to seem quite spontaneous. 
However, in order that the most impor- 
tant things may be given due time and not 
be crowded out by unessentials, there is @ 


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a 
Beginners’ Department 


program, which is wisely planned but 
which is necessarily elastic. 

_ he organization of the Beginners’ De- 
partment is also kept as unostentatious 
and informal as possible. When the de- 
partment is small one teacher is sufficient ; 


does the work of a secretary; in very large 
departments there is often a secretary and 
a pianist, and frequently a number of 
young girls sit with the children in the 
circle, and assist in such ways as put- 
‘ting on wraps and distributing papers, 
and are responsible for the attendance of 
small groups of children. Such assist- 
ants do not teach, but obtain in this way 
-a knowledge of children and, through 
observation, some insight into teaching 
‘methods is gained. : 

The ideal environment of the Be- 
ginners’ Department is one that will 
assist in inducing a homelike atmosphere, 
banishing formality and the fear and 

sense of strangeness which shy newcomers 
feel. The Beginners’ Department is of 
too recent origin to be provided for in the 
equipment of most of the older churches, 
though many a dark, unattractive vestry 
has been transformed by means of deli- 
eate tinting, bright rugs and appropriate 
furniture into a pretty and childlike room. 
Churches that plan especially for the Be- 
ginners’ Department model the room 
after those of the public kindergartens, 
with low windows, light woodwork, fin- 
ished in tasteful colors, the furnishings 
appropriate to small bodies. The pictures 
should be hung low, the musical instru- 
ment should be a piano, and the small 
chairs arranged in a circle or semicircle. 
(See Architecture, 8. 8S.) 

The Beginners’ Department being com- 
posed of children, most of whom are not 
yet of school age, and only a small pro- 
portion throughout the country in kinder- 
garten, it is natural that there should be 
a close connection between this depart- 
ment and the home. ‘The mothers are 
frequent visitors at the Sunday-school ses- 
sions, usually coming at first with timid 
little ones, and later, when this need is 
passed, continuing to visit, because of 
their interest in the children and in the 
work of the department. This interest 
on the part of the mothers often leads to 
the formation of mothers’ clubs or parent- 
teacher associations, in which child study 


where it is larger an assistant plays and. 


Beginners’ Department 


is taken up or some course of reading con- 
nected with the mutual interest in chil- 
dren. (Mothers and Parent-Teacher 
Association, National Congress of.) 
Where the parents keep in touch with the 
instruction there is also a splendid oppor- 
tunity to carry it out practically in the 
home, thus making the child’s religious 
nurture complete and unified—the truths 
taught in the Sunday school made prac- 
tical in the home, and the child realiz- 
ing that there are not two distinct lives, 
the religious and the secular, but that all 
is one. (Parents’ Classes. ) 

To recapitulate, the Beginners’ Depart- 
ment is the solution of a need—not an 
artificial institution. It is composed of 
little children whose instinctive question- 
ings and wonderings indicate an outreach- 
ing after religion, which the instruction 
in this department endeavors to supply. 
The instruction is based upon the actual 
needs of the child, shown by his character- 
istics. (See Psychology, Child; Religion, 
The Child’s.) The organization and 
management are of the simplest, the en- 
vironment aims toward homelikeness, and 
the necessarily close connection with the 
mothers makes natural a certain degree 
of home interest and codperation. 

The entire equipment—the circle of 
chairs in which the children sit, the large 
pictures, frequently colored, and which 
illustrate the stories, and the papers which 
contain them—is prepared with a view to 
making attractive, interesting and child- 
like the children’s early Sunday-school 
experiences, and in making their first 
lessons in religion attractive as well as 
understandable. 

FRANCES W. DANIELSON. 

References : 

Adler, Felix. Moral Instruction of 

Children. (New York, 1892.) 

Archibald, E. J. The Primary De- 
partment. (Philadelphia, c1907.) 

Bryant, 8. C. How to Tell Stories 
to Children. (Boston, c1905.) 

Chenery, Susan. As the Twig 1s 

Bent. (Boston, c1901.) 

Danielson, F. W. Lessons for Teach- 
ers of Beginners. (Boston, c1914.) 

Davids, Eleanor, pseud. Note-Book 
of an Adopted Mother. (New York, 

1903.) | 

Dawson, G. E. The Child and His 

Religion. (Chicago, 1909.) 


Belief 


The Point of 
(New 


Du Bois, Patterson, 
Contact 1n Teaching. Ed. 4. 
York, 1901, c1896-1900.) 

Harrison, Elizabeth. A Study of 
Child Nature from the Kindergarten 
Standpoint. (Chicago, 1909-c1890.) 

Hervey, W. L. Picture Work. (New 
York, c1896-1908.) 

Hodges, George. 
Children in Religion. 
1911.) 

Houghton, L. S. Telling Bible 
Stories. (New York, 1905.) 

Lamoreaux, Mrs. A. A. The Unfold- 
ang Life. (Chicago, c1907.) 

Peabody, Elizabeth. Lectures in the 
Training Schools for Kindergartners. 
(Boston, 1893.) 

Poulsson, A. E. Love and Law in 
Child Travming. (Springfield, Mass., 
1899.) 

St. John, E. P. Child Nature and 
Child Nurture. (Boston, c1911.) 

St. John, E. P. Stories and Story- 
Telling in Moral and Religious Edu- 


The Training of 
(New York, 


cation. (Boston, c1910.) 

Sully, James. Children’s Ways. 
(New York, 1897.) 

Wiggin, Mrs. K. D. Children’s 
Rights. (Boston, 1892.) 


Winterburn, F. H. From the Child’s 
Standpoint. (New York, 1899.) 


BELIEF.—Srr Creeps, PLACE OF, IN 
RELIGIOUS EpucaTion; RELIGION, Psy- 
CHOLOGY OF. 


BELL, ANDREW (1753-1832).—A 
British educational reformer, and the 
founder of the “monitorial system” or Ma- 
dras system of instruction. He was born 
in St. Andrews; took orders in the Church 


of England, but served only a brief rector- . 


ship before going to India in 178%. The 
East India Company had established the 
Madras Male Orphan Asylum in which 
the orphan children of the European mili- 
tary men were to be educated, and in 1789 
Dr. Bell was appointed as superintendent 
of this institution. It was impossible to 
secure properly prepared assistants, so he 
originated and successfully carried out 
the plan of having the pupils themselves 
aid him in conducting the school. After 
several years Dr. Bell returned to Europe 
where he promoted his educational ideas 
and published “An Experiment made in 


gS 


Bell, Use of the 


the Male Asylum of Madras, suggesting 
a system by which a school or family may 
teach itself under the superintendence of 
the master or parent.” Schools on the 
Madras system were established in various 
parts of Great Britain and on the Con- 
tinent. The two main points in the plan 
were “mutual tuition” and “accurate prep- 
aration.” Joseph Lancaster (gq. v.) was 
accused of unlawfully appropriating Bell’s 
system. However, both men made use of 
the idea of mutual instruction. 

In 1811 the Church of England founded 
the “National Society for Promoting the 
Education of the Poor” (q. v.). Dr. Bell 
was appointed superintendent, and the re- 
mainder of his life was identified with 
this Society. Joshua Fitch says: “Though 
it was no organic part of his original 
plan, the vigorous dogmatic teaching of 
the Prayer Book and Catechism became 
identified with Bell’s system.” 

Emity J. FEL. 

References: 

Fitch, J. G@. Educational Aims and 

Methods. (London, 1900.) 

Meiklejohn, J. M.D. An Old Educa- 


tional Reformer: Dr. Andrew Bell. 


(Edinburgh, 1881.) 


BELL, USE OF THE.—The bell is for 
the use of the general superintendent and 
the departmental superintendents. To 
make its use helpful a few simple rules 
should be observed. 

1. The bell itself should be clear and 
musical in tone, never sharp or clanging. 
It is not intended to serve as a fire or 
riot alarm, but to assist in securing at- 
tention and give direction to the general 
exercises. 

2. It should be used sparingly. A 
simple moderate tap as a rule should be 
sufficient. The superintendent by stand- 
ing quietly for a moment may secure at- 
tention in large measure before touching 
the bell. The quiet and pleasantly com- 
manding attitude of the superintendent 
will make much bell-ringing unnecessary. 
Where there is a piano in the room, par- 
ticularly when first calling the school to 
order, it is better to have the pianist strike 
a clear, strong chord rather than use the 
bell. 


3. The bell signals should be definite 


and of invariable meaning. A single tap 


may call for attention and quiet; two taps 


| 
. 


Bellamy 


'may be a request to rise for singing, re- 
-sponsive reading, or other purpose; and a 
simple tap again may indicate “be seated.” 
In any case, according to the program, the 
bell must be made to minister to order, not 
to confusion. 

4, The bell should not be used during 
the study period to secure order in a single 
elass. The entire room should not be dis- 
turbed by having the bell advertise a local 

disorder. The offending class should be 
reached in some other way. 

5. The bell signals should be used in 
harmony with a definite time system. If 
a given period is allotted to lesson study, 
the bell should be silent until within five 
minutes of the expiration of the period, 
when a quiet tap will serve as notice to 
the teachers, and the remaining minutes 
will enable them to conclude their instruc- 
tions and make any desired announce- 
ments to their classes. Promptly at the 
close of the period the ringing of the bell 
should be an authoritative summons to 
the closing exercises. The pupils will re- 
spect the bell only when it is understood 
that it represents timeliness and system 
and has intelligent administrative author- 
ity back of it. J.T. McFar.anp. 


BELLAMY, JOSEPH (1719-90).—An 
American theologian; was born in Che- 
shire, Conn., in 1719. Dr. Bellamy was 
graduated from Yale University in 1735 
and was ordained pastor of the Congre- 
gational Church in Bethlehem, or Beth- 
lem as it was then called, in 1740. 
True Religion Delineated was published 
in 1750. Following this, several young 
Men requested Dr. Bellamy to instruct 
them in their preparation for the ministry. 
Thus it happened that a “theological 
school” was established in his own house 
and many of the most eminent clergymen 
of the next generation were educated 
there. 

He established a Sunday school in 
Bethlehem, Conn., in 1740, which has 
adapted itself to changing conditions and 
is still in existence. 

The children of his congregation re- 
ceived particular attention from Dr. 
Bellamy. His “memoir” states that “he 
is believed to have been the first pastor in 
the land, if not in the world, who began 
and through all his ministry kept up, a 
Sabbath school in his congregation, regu- 


Benevolences 


larly spending an hour in the interval of 
public worship, on the Sabbath, in cate- 
chizing and instructing one class of chil- 
dren and another of adults, in the word 


of God.” 
S. G. AYREs. 
Reference: 


Bellamy, Joseph. Works. 2 vy. 
“Memoir,” by Tryon Edwards, v. 1. 
(Boston, 1853.) 


BENEVOLENCES IN THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL.—The Sunday school is an edu- 
cational institution, and therefore, in all 
that it does for or requires of the pupil, 
it should keep in view the educational 
aim. The application of this principle 
to the matter of giving means that the 
aim of the school should be, not to secure 
from the pupil as much money as possi- 
ble, but to widen his sympathies and to 
develop in him a spirit of liberality. But, 
in order to be educational, giving must be 
the expression of real interest and, there- 
fore, must be intelligent: Neither adults 
nor children can be interested in what they 


- know little or nothing about. Giving in 


the Sunday school, therefore, should 
always be preceded by careful and definite 
instruction. 

This evidently means that the benevo- 
lences of any young children should be 
directed to persons or objects that are 
near enough to come within the range of 
their personal observation. Things so re- 
mote and general as missions, education, 
and church and Sunday-school extension 
will make but slight appeal to the child 
in the Beginners’ or Primary grade. On 
the other hand, it is comparatively easy 
to awaken his interest in an undertaking 
with which he may come into immediate 
contact, or in some particular person or 
group of persons in his own neighborhood. 
For instance, he will respond enthusias- 
tically to an appeal to help in furnishing 
the Sunday-school room; or the home 
nearby that has been built for little chil- 
dren who have no fathers and mothers; 
or a ward in the neighboring hospital in 
which the poor are cared for when they 
are sick. All these are concrete and defi- 
nite things that he can see and under- 
stand. (Social Service and the S. 8.) 

As the child’s life unfolds and his in- 
telligence increases, it becomes an easy 
matter to widen the scope of his interests 


Benevolences 


until they reach out to the children of 
remote communities and even of far away 
lands. But here again those for whom 
help is asked should be made as definite 
and concrete as possible. A child of the 
Junior age, or even a youth in his early 
teens, is not apt to feel any genuine con- 
cern about social and moral conditions in 
India or China; but it is not a difficult 
matter, by means of pictures and stories, 
to arouse his interest in a certain group 
of boys and girls in a particular school 
in China or India. (See Missionary Edu- 
cation in the §S. 8S.) 

These illustrations suggest in a general 
way the method that should be adopted 
by the Sunday school in the conduct of its 
benevolences. It should begin by appeal- 
ing to the pupils in behalf of those who 
are near at hand and whose needs may 
be made real to them. Then, by a process 
of instruction adapted to the varying 
stages of their development, it should 
widen the circle of their interests, always 
making sure that the newly awakened in- 
terest shall express itself either in the 
giving of money, or in some other appro- 
priate form of service. The children 
should be encouraged to earn the money 
they give whenever that is possible. Where 


it is not possible, they should be encour-_ 


aged to make their offerings out of a gen- 
eral allowance that is given them for their 
personal use. ‘There is not much educa- 
tional value in handing a child a dime as 
he starts to Sunday school and instruct- 
ing him to drop it into the collection box 
when it is passed. People are not lkely 
to be greatly helped by giving what they 
do not feel really belongs to them. 

If the principles here laid down are 
pedagogically sound, it follows that the 
matter of giving is one to which both 
parents and Sunday-school teachers need 
to give the most careful attention. The 
old haphazard method must give place 
to a rational educational policy in the 
carrying out of which parents and teach- 
ers must codperate. Instead of permit- 
ting the Sunday school to be exploited by 
every enthusiast who comes with an 
appeal for his pet enterprise, we should 
set before the pupils a limited number of 
special things to be accomplished and 
special causes to be helped, and steadfastly 
refuse to allow them to be diverted from 
the path marked out for them. 


Bethany Sunday School | 
| 


There has been much discussion during | 
recent years as to whether or not the. 
church should assume responsibility for 
the financial support of the Sunday school. 
The reasons why it should do so seem 
quite conclusive. The Sunday school | 
should be made to feel that it is a part 
of the church and that it is under obliga- 
tion to aid in supporting the church and 
there is no better way of accomplishing 
this than by making the bill for Sunday- 
school supplies a part of the general 
budget and then requiring the school to 
do its part towards meeting this budget. 
Where this plan is adopted, the offerings 
for certain Sundays in the year should be 
set apart for congregational expenses, and 
when these Sundays come round the 
pupils, as in all other cases, should be 
instructed in regard to the objects for 
which their offerings are made and shown 
why they should give gladly. (See 
Finances, 8. 8.) 

Care should be taken from the begin- 
ning that giving in the Sunday school 
shall spring from religious as well as 
from humane motives. As soon as the 
child is able to respond with love and 
trust to the appeal of the personality of 
Jesus presented to him through picture 
and song and story, it is possible to 
quicken his benevolent impulses by teach- 
ing him that in ministering to any human 
need he is helping and pleasing Jesus. 
And thus little by little he may be brought 
under the dominance of the mightiest of 
all motives to service and self-sacrifice. 
For there are none who give, not their 
money only but themselves also, with such 
abandon and whole-heartedness as those 
who give “in His name.” 

E. B. CHAPPELL. | 


BEREAN BIBLE CLASSES.—Szn 
Loyau MovEeMENT, 


BETHANY (PRESBYTERIAN) SUN- 
DAY SCHOOL.—The Sunday school of 
Bethany Presbyterian Church, Philadel- 
phia, of which the Hon. John Wana- 
maker (q. v.) is superintendent, and by 
whose name it is generally known, is an 
eminent example of an efficient and well 
organized Sunday school. It is also one 
of the largest schools, having a regular 
attendance of over 3,500. At one time 
it was the largest Sunday school in the 


iv 
! 
| 


Bethany Sunday School 

_world; but its members have decreased by 
swarming into two other Bethany schools 
in neighborhoods where churches have 
been established. Bethany has been in 
successful operation for over fifty years, 
‘and has evolved an organization well 
worth study. Like other great schools, 
it has a tradition and a dominant idea: 
to make the school a church home for the 
Christian nurture of all who belong to it 
and are to be brought into it. 

This aim has been to a large extent ful- 
filled, though it is recognized that the suc- 
cess attained is to be the stepping stone to 
further endeavor. Also the purpose of 
the school is to aid its pupils to become 
active members of Bethany Church, re- 
‘eeived into full membership on confes- 
sion of faith. It may be added that, in 
harmony with the idea of a home for 
Christian nurture, there is the idea of the 
heads of that home—the pastor, super- 
intendent, officers, and teachers—to whom 
the obedience of pupils is due. Pupils 
who become church members need not, 
and usually do not, leave the Sunday 
school, but continue to attend their 
former classes or to engage in any other 
kind of work in the school. In this re- 
spect there is cordial codperation and full 
interchange of activities, without con- 
fusion between church and school. 

Up to fourteen years of age the usual 
divisions of a well graded school are fol- 
lowed, but beyond that the only grading 
is according to age, and is usually applied 
for the convenient grouping of the large 
number of pupils in the main room. 

There are four departments in the 
strictly graded part of the school: (1) 
Cradle Roll, for children up to two years 
of age; (2) Beginners’, two to five; Pri- 
mary, five to nine; Junior, nine to thir- 
teen. One room is allotted to the first 
and second year Junior girls, and one 
room to the third and fourth year Junior 
girls. A corresponding allotment is made 
to the Junior boys. As part of the Pri- 
mary Department there is a class of about 
thirty mothers with infants in arms, and 
they may come at any time during the 
session. This is done as an accommoda- 
tion to those mothers whose home duties 
require them to come irregularly. A 
great many mothers come with their chil- 
dren to the Beginners’ and Primary de- 
partments. 


Bethany Sunday School 


In the main room, where the pupils are 
of fourteen years of age and upwards, 
there are seventy-four classes. The In- 
ternational Uniform Lessons are used 
here; but the International Graded Les- 
sons are used in the strictly graded part 
of the school. In addition to the classes 
in the main room, there are larger classes 
of adults in separate rooms, They differ 
from the main room classes only in size 
and in being equipped for and engaged in 
outside work; for instance, the uplifting 
of destitute and fallen men. The Uni- 
form Lessons are used. The classes are 
taught separately; but they join with the 
pupils in the main room in the opening 
and closing exercises of worship. 

These exercises are of great importance 
in Bethany Sunday school. The singing 
is hearty, devotional, evangelistic; hymns 
and tunes are of great variety and care- 
fully selected. The responsive reading 
of Scripture is also an important and an 
impressive feature of the service. Differ- 
ent sections of the school alternate in this 
part of the service. The school is noted 
for punctuality in attendance. It opens 
promptly at 2:30 p.m. On special occa- 
sions the time for the presence of officers 
and teachers is a few minutes in advance 
of the time for pupils. A lack of prompt- 
ness compels a long wait outside. 

Besides the classes in the main room 
and the classrooms adjoining, there is 
the well-known Bible Union, composed 
of from three to five hundred adults of 
both sexes, All instruction is given in 
the form of lectures. Questions are asked 
and replies given. Many of those who 
attend are busy throughout the week and 
lack the time to study; and for this rea- 
son the exercises of the Union are often 
partly in the nature of an entertainment, 
for which well-known singers, speakers, 
and other outside talent are engaged. 
The Union is divided into bands, each 
under a titheman or tithewoman who has 
charge of the attendance and of the gen- 
eral welfare of his or her band. All the 
bands are under a centurion, who is the 
head of the Union and must be a teacher. 

On Children’s Day in June of each year 
the children of the different departments 
who are to be promoted receive recogni- 
tion and honors in the church, and are 
given Bibles, Testaments, diplomas, etc. 
There are seven Communions annually, 


Bethune 


and at each Communion those pupils who 
signify their willingness and are properly 
prepared are received into membership 
on confession of faith. The school has 
class organizations, but these are re- 
stricted to pupils of the third and fourth 
year Junior, and those in the main room. 

Bethany has a doormen’s association, 
whose members guard the doors, greet 
strangers, guide them over the building, 
etc. There is also a fine orchestra. The 
superintendent, Mr. Wanamaker, is as- 
sisted by Mr. Robert M. Coyle, first asso- 
ciate superintendent, and six associate 
superintendents, 

J. W. RUSSELL. 


BETHUNE, DIVIE (1771-1824).— 
Merchant and philanthropist; born at 
Dingwall, Ross-shire, Scotland. His man- 
hood was spent in New York city, where 
he was a member_and elder in the Cedar 
Street Presbyterian Church. In codpera- 
tion with his wife, Mrs. Joanna Bethune 
(q. v.), and with Mrs, Isabella Graham 
(gq. v.), he was among the foremost per- 
sons who established the Sunday-school 
system in America. 

Of Mr. Bethune’s personal character 
Mrs. Graham writes: “According to know- 
ledge, observation, and even investigation, 
Divie Bethune stands, in my mind, in tem- 
per, conduct, and conversation, the nearest 
to the gospel standard of any man or 
woman I ever knew intimately. Devoted 
to his God, to his church, to his family, to 
all to whom he may have opportunity of 
doing good, duty is his governing prin- 
ciple.” He died in New York city in 
1824. 

Emity J. FEL. 


BETHUNE, JOANNA (1770-1860) .— 
Daughter of Mrs. Isabella Graham (g. v.) 
and wife of Mr. Divie Bethune (gq. v.), 
was born in 1770 at Fort Niagara, where 
her father was the “surgeon to the second 
battalion of His Britannic Majesty’s 60th 
or Royal American Regiment.” She was 
thoroughly educated abroad, and removed 
to New York city with her widowed 
mother in 1789, and until her marriage in 
1795, she assisted in teaching in Mrs. 
Graham’s private school. 

In 1801-02, Mr. and Mrs. Bethune vis- 
ited Scotland, where they came in contact 
with the Sunday-school movement, and. 


g 


Bible, Adaptation of the 





‘ 
upon their return to America they estab. 
lished similar schools. Mrs. Bethune was 
the active spirit in founding the New 
York Orphan Asylum (1806), in Green. 
wich Village, codperated with her mother 
in establishing the first “Sunday school for 
ignorant adults” (1814), and in 1816 she 
organized the New York Female Sunday 
School Union (q. v.), which later became 
a part of the New York branch of the 
American Sunday School Union. 

Mrs. Bethune was deeply interested in 
the education of the young, and infant 
schools were a part of her charitable work, 
She wrote and edited several books on in- 
struction in infant schools, and also edited 
The Unpublished Letters and Correspond- 
ence of Mrs. Isabella Graham. Her in- 
fluence and personal labors were of such 
a positive character that for her the dis- 
tinction may be claimed “of being the 
mother of Sabbath-schools in America,” 

Emity J. FELL, 
Reference: 
Bethune, G. W. Memoirs of Mrs, 

Joanna Bethune. (New York, 1863.) 


BIBLE, ADAPTATION OF THE, IN 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.—The word 
“adaptation” may be used in two senses. 
First, to suggest that the Bible in its 
nature and form is well adapted to the 
work of religious education, and thus 
an article of this kind need do no more 
than to point out wherein this adaptation 
consists. Second, it may mean that the 
Bible in its present form is not adapted 
for use in religious education and should 
be so adapted, if it is to be used to the 
best advantage. Both these meanings 
must be considered. In a general way, 
the Bible is suited for use in religious 
education, yet many changes are neces- 
sary in order to obtain the best results. 
It is the purpose of this article to state 
the fundamental principles involved and 
to show their importance and effect An 
Bible adaptation. f 

The aim of religious education is an 
all-important consideration and it should 
be sufficiently large and manifold to en- 
able the teacher to use the Bible fairly 
and courageously. (See Religious Edu- 
cation, Aims of.) The Bible gives no 
uncertain message concerning questions 
of character, life, destiny, yet the purpose 
in using the Bible will determine in great 


i 
: 


ra 


i 


} 
‘Bible, Adaptation of the 


‘measure the treatment of its text and 
the comparative value of its various pas- 
sages. ‘The attainment of knowledge of 
the Bible is not the highest end in study- 
ing it, valuable as such knowledge is. 
‘The Sacred Scriptures are not an end in 
themselves. They are a means to an end, 
the importance of which is incalculable. 
‘The better the means are understood the 
greater the hope of attaining the end. 

If one is endeavoring to produce theo- 
logians, his purpose in using the Bible in 
religious education will differ greatly 
from that use of it when the purpose is 
to make members of some particular de- 
nomination, or again, to develop Chris- 
tian character. Very largely, the purpose 
will always determine the means and 
methods to be used. Whatever else reli- 
gious leaders may have in mind, one aim 
towers far above all others; namely, the 
making of a useful Christian citizen. 
This implies Christian character, capa- 
bility, and a working knowledge of the 
Bible. 

_ The fitness of any passage for use at 
a specific point in religious education 
must be determined by other reasons than 
the mere fact that it is in the Bible. 

_ The factors that determine the place 
of any chosen passage in a particular 
grade for instruction are as follows: 

1. The moral-religious standard the 
passage presents. 

2. The power of the passage to appeal 
to the natural interest of the pupils of 
the grade. 

_ 38. The literary character of the passage. 

4, The suitability of the passage to 
meet the mental grasp of the pupil and 
to aid in his mental and spiritual de- 
velopment. 

5. The fitness of the passage to aid in 
establishing Christian standards of char- 
acter and conduct. 

If the passage has no relation to 
modern ideals and life as inspired by 
Christianity it should not be used, except 
in the higher grades where a well rounded 
knowledge of the Bible is desired. The 
greater difficulty will be experienced in 
adapting the Old Testament as the morals 
of the first half of it are sometimes below 
the Christian standard. In connection 
with the lives of some of the persons 
prominently mentioned are incidents of 
an unworthy and even immoral character, 


Bible, Adaptation of the 


as for example in the cases of Lot, Abra- 
ham, Jacob, and Solomon. A study of 
their lives would need to be very dis- 
criminatingly prepared for teaching to 
young children. 

The truth or truths taught in any given 
passage are a key to its adaptability to a 
particular grade. The New Testament 
teaches chiefly by presenting truths either 
directly, or in form of parable, while the 
Old Testament is largely historical and 
biographical. A closer study of the Old 
Testament passages is necessary to decide 
what truth is taught in each. Care should 
be exercised lest one read into those pas- 
sages New Testament conceptions. The 
historical background, the occasion, and 
the immediate environment out of which 
the writing came, together with the pur- 
pose of the author in writing, cannot be 
overlooked in selecting material for in- 
struction and study. Honesty in the 
interpretation as well as in the use of 
Scripture is incumbent upon all who take 
part in the work of religious education. 
What meaning did the author intend to 
convey? What did the people receiving 
or hearing the message understand by it? 
What is the principle underlying it? 
What are the truths taught in the pas- 
sage? Are the truths taught in the pas- 
sage of real importance to our time and 
do they accord with the teachings of 
Christ? These are questions requiring 
a fair and satisfactory answer by those 
whose duty it is to select and prepare ma- 
terial from the Bible for educational use. 

The principle of progress in individual 
growth and development of the pupil is 
of paramount importance in adapting the 
Bible in religious education. It is not a 
mere coincidence that the Eden scene is 
near the beginning of the Bible and the 
Revelation picture at its close. The vi- 
sion of the Christian prophet is the cul- 
mination of a long and varied course of 
moral-religious growth and development 
of the race under the direct influence and 
power of Christianity. No sooner had 
man sinned than the dawning of a better 
day was announced, even though the in- 
tervening night was to be dark and peril- 
ous. But from the beginning of the Bible 
to its close one feels the anticipatory 
tendency, the forward pull, the lure of 
that which lies just beyond, and promise 
and enchantment of a golden age. There 


Bible, Adaptation of the 


is in the Bible the life principle of prog- 
ress by which all life is influenced and 
controlled. And in considering any pas- 
sage of Scripture for use in religious in- 
struction one has to regard its present 
and its ultimate influence, whether it has 
a backward look and tendency, or whether 
its spirit and teaching are toward a more 
advanced stage and higher development. 

There is also danger of using a pas- 
sage too soon or too late. It may be given 
too great importance or too little em- 
phasis. But it is better for the pupil to 
be advanced too soon than too late. In 
the first instance he can grow to the new 
standard, while in the latter he is likely 
to lose interest and drop out. Hence, a 
passage should lift the pupil and increase 
his interest rather than depress him and 
deaden interest. The danger to the new 
education is at this point. The pupil’s 
present needs are apt to be regarded as 
final. (See Bible as a Source Book of 
Religious Education.) 

S. B. Hasterr. 


BIBLE AS A SOURCE BOOK OF RELI- 
GIOUS EDUCATION.—The whole Bible 
may be regarded as two series of lesson 
books in a long course of religious educa- 
tion. ‘They comprise: (1) the Jewish 
Scriptures, produced through many cen- 
turies; which may be classified as Law, 
History, Poetry, and Preaching; (2) the 
Christian Scriptures, written by the fol- 
lowers of Jesus Christ; which may be 
grouped into Biography, Correspondence, 
and Allegory. 

The early churches treasured the Scrip- 
tures on which the Lord Himself had been 
trained, and to which he often appealed 
when speaking to his fellow-countrymen 
(Deut. 6:7). Their attitude toward 
these earlier writings may be perceived 
from various references. 1. The Law is 
not the highest guide for our actions, 
Christ alone is our Lord and Master 
(John 13: 13) ; it is not a means of salva- 
tion, in his name alone is this found 
(Acts 4:12); since the days of John the 
Baptist, the Gospel has superseded both 
Law and Prophets (Luke 16:16); the 
grace and truth through Jesus Christ 
supply in full measure more than Moses 
brought (John 1:17). Yet the Law may 
still serve for two lessons, Sin and God 


(Rom. 7:7). It reveals to us our own 





ui 


Wa 
Bible as a Source Book | 


nature. “Who can understand his er. | 
rors?” is a constant demand of all ages; 
the Holy Spirit still has to convict men 
of sin (John 16:8), and there are few 
better agencies for arousing the conscience 
than this Word of God, still living and 
active and piercing, revealing to man his 
evil thoughts and his revolt against all 
authority (Heb. 4:12). Again, while 
Christ taught that God is our Father 
(John 14:9), yet fatherhood and love do 
not exclude rule and atonement (I John 
2: 1-3) ; and these are taught in the Lay. 
Moses wrote of Christ (John 5: 46), and 
in the Epistle to the Hebrews illustrations 
are drawn from the obsolete ritual as fore- 
shadowing much that was fully revealed 
in him. Modern education insists on 
recognizing continuity and tracing growth, 
If the student of the English constitution 
looks to English history and notes why 
old laws were repealed or refashioned, and 
why new laws were made; if the botanist 
scans the seed and the sapling to under- 
stand the oak, then the followers of Jesus 
Christ will rejoice in tracing the evidences 
that centuries before he died on Calvary, 
his atoning work was prefigured at the 
Jewish altar, and will better comprehend 
the redemption through Christ foreknown 
before the foundation of the world. The 
New Covenant in his blood is seen to be 
a serious pledge on the part of all his 
disciples, involving solemn responsibility, 
when the ratification of the Old Covenant 
is compared (Exod. 19-24); the promise 
that a better one should replace it brings 
out the precise benefits assured by the 
Mediator (Jer. 31: 31-34). “The Gospel, 
complete as it is, receives illustration 
from the Law. 

2. The Histories give pictures painted 
for our warning and gathered i:tto a gal- 
lery for us to study (I Cor. 10:11, Rom. 
15:4). They are not casual snap-shots, 
but an orderly selection whose principle 


is plainly set forth as tracing the relation 


of Israel to God, and God’s plan of edu- 


cating his chosen people (Judges 2:11 


23, II Kings 17: 7-23). 


moral of the story is pointed out, some- — 


Sometimes the 


times the facts are stated and left as a 


test of our own advance, whether we ap- 
prove or can improve (John 6:6); but 
the story is not told for its own sake as a 
mere stirring tale; rather it is the unfold- 
ing of God’s plans as revealed to his sery- 


/ 


f 
{ 
| 


‘ 


“Bible as a Source Book 


y 

ants (Amos 3:7); and the Jews so far 
recognized this that they classified many 
of the histories as the Early Prophets. 

3. Poetry may always be a great in- 
strument of education, and in the anthol- 
ogy here we have indeed a golden treasury. 
‘Most of the Scriptures show God speaking 
to man; here we have man questing after 
God. In the book of Job is a great debate 
as to the purpose of suffering—a perennial 
question; hardly a new answer has been 
suggested since. cclesiastes shows a 
‘series of experiments to find the chief 

ood; the conclusion of one after another 
(Eccl. 1: 14), No road this way, may save 
many a repetition of the failures. The 
‘book of Proverbs was deliberately com- 
piled to teach wisdom and understanding, 
and it sets in the forefront that the chief 
part of knowledge is to fear the Lord 
(Proy. 1:7), thus building on the founda- 
tion laid by Ecclesiastes (Eccl. 12: 13- 
14). The Song of Songs, a warm eulogy 
of conjugal fidelity in the midst of temp- 
tation, not only sanctifies the earthly rela- 
tionship (I Cor. 7:14), but may suffuse 
with holy ardor the obligation of the 
Church to be loyal to her heavenly Bride- 
groom (Eph. 5: 22-23, Rev. 21:2). As 
for the Psalms, where else has the world 
such a hymn book, running the gamut of 
devotion, expressing every mood from 
gloomy doubt to enraptured love, with 
anthems for royal and national anniver- 
‘saries, with intuitions of a Redeemer to 
come! Their abundant use in the New 
Testament is continued in the daily song 
of many communions. 

4. In Prophecy the Jewish Scriptures 
rise to their greatest height. Here we 
have the cream of the preaching of cen- 
turies. with its interpretation of passing 
events, its appeal to conscience, its 
glimpses of the Messiah and his works 
(Acts 8:32). Unfortunately, it is still 
difficult to understand without a guide, 

even in the Revised Version. But when 
the prophecies are arranged in connection 
with the story of the times, no part of the 
‘Seripture better repays consecutive study. 
‘To place aright the many sections in 
Isaiah and Jeremiah is a delicate task. 
Happily, many scholars have drawn the 
outlines clearly enough for us to mark the 
appropriateness of the preaching, the 
steady advance, with sometimes the step- 
‘Ping-stone of one age becoming the 


Bible as a-Source Book 


stumbling-block of another (Isa. 33: 20; 
Jer. 7:4). Such arrangement helps us 
also to trace the divine thread which 
strings together these pearls. The preach- 
ers not only served their own generation, 
but, perhaps unconsciously, were speaking 
to future ages about the Christ and his 
kingdom (I Pet. 1:11). The spirit of 
prophecy is testimony to Jesus (Rev. 19: 
10), and this testimony grew constantly 
in distinctness and beauty. So to the 
prophets did our Lord turn to reassure 
the faint-hearted (Luke 24:25); to the 
prophets did his apostles appeal (I Cor. 
15:3, 4) to show the meaning of what 
he had done and the eternity of God’s 
plans; to the prophets did an Evangelist 
refer (Matt. 2:17, 8:17, 12:17) to trace 
out that even the lesser events in the life 
of Jesus Christ had been prepared by God 
and revealed to men. 

All these Jewish Scriptures bear wit- 
ness to Christ (John 5:39, 40), the sole 
fount of life. The New Testament deals 
directly with Him and his claims upon 
us. Three Evangelists have left their 
accounts of His ministry—Mark empha- 
sizing his deeds, Matthew his sayings, 
Luke his grace. Luke goes on to tell 
(Acts 1:2) how through the Holy Spirit 
he continued to do and to teach after he 
was received up, and how the first dis- 
ciples began to fulfill his commission 
(Matt. 28: 19-20) in making other dis- 
ciples, and pledging them to his service. 
These parts of the Bible receive ample 
attention, especially in Sunday schools; 
yet even here closer study reveals depths 
unplumbed. Not often is the question so 
much as asked why Luke, a Gentile writ- 
ing for a Gentile, is less read than 
Matthew, a Jew writing for Jews. 

The Lord bade his disciples teach their 
converts whatever he had taught them. 
In the letters preserved from the corre- 
spondence of a few we have specimens of 
their teaching. Here is the advanced 
course to which too few advance. For- 
tunately, Acts provides a background for 
half the letters, and one or two chronolog- 
ical editions are now available, showing 
the same care that Carlyle bestowed on 
the letters of Cromwell. It is possible to 
recognize different schools of thought; to 
compare James and Jude with Matthew; 
to see the advance in Paul’s teaching 
from his missionary addresses and his 


Bible as a Source Book 


letters to Thessalonica, through the four 
great Epistles culminating in Romans, 
through the four from Rome leading up 
to Ephesians, till we reach the three of his 
old age, closing with II Timothy. We 
may compare Peter with the earlier half 
of Acts, with James, with Romans and 
Ephesians, so noting another line of de- 
velopment. We may study the growth of 
a doctrine or custom: as when we see the 
Jewish idea of one church (Acts 9:31) 
throughout the Holy Land, governed by 
elders at Jerusalem (Acts 11:30), and 
contrast the Greek custom of one little 
church in each city (Acts 14:23) soon 
governed by its bishops and deacons (Phil. 
1:1), like the aldermen and councilors of 
the city; then note how Paul linked these 
(Gal. 1:2) into provincial groups (Rom. 
15:26), and presently dropped even the 
name of the city church in order to set 
forth the ideal Church, the Body of the 
Lord (Eph. 1:23). Once the letters are 
in order, we can answer question after 
question, and whole courses of teaching 
suggest themselves. ‘The Epistle to the 
Hebrews has its special message for our 
purpose: Cease laying foundations and 
build higher ; do not linger in adult classes 
being taught elementary facts, but go on to 
become teachers. It also affords admirable 
object lessons how to treat the ancient 
records, 

The Revelation stands apart; yet for 
those who in present distress need a vision 
of future triumph, it may be read in con- 
nection with kindred Scriptures—parts of 
Ezekiel and Daniel, Mark 13, Thessalo- 
nians. Nowhere else is the caution given, 
Let him that readeth understand (Mark 
13:14) ; and though Paul did glory in the 
revelations (II Cor. 12:1) made to him, 
it was only because of the glorying of his 
correspondents (I Cor. 14: 6-8) whom he 
warned to be silent unless there were an 
interpreter, emphasizing also the need of 
the Spirit for this (I Cor. 2: 13, 14). 

The other writings bearing the name 
of John should be taken together. Two 
notes show that they belong to one of 
Paul’s mission fields, perhaps a genera- 
tion later. New difficulties that had 
arisen were dealt with, partly by explicit 
teaching, both positive and also critical 
of error (I John 1: 5-10), partly by selec- 
tion from the abundant recollections 
(John 21:25) of the Lord’s ministry 


j 
Bible and the Teacher | 


(John 20:30, 31) carefully studied in g 
new setting, with the ripest conclusions | 
set in the forefront. The Epistle and the 
Gospel reflect light each on the other; the - 
good news distilled from the story, “God | 
so loved the world, that he gave his only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on 
him should not perish, but have eternal 
life,” is followed in the letter with the 
spirit of all his teaching, “If God so loved 
us, we also ought to love one another.” 
See other articles under the word Bible, 
W. T. WHITLEY. 


: 

BIBLE ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS 
IN AMERICA.—Sre Frienps, 8S. §. 
Work AMONG. ; 


BIBLE CHRISTIANS.—Srez Unrrep 
MetHopist CHuRCH (ENGLAND). 


BIBLE CLASSES.—Srz Apvuttr Dkr- 
PARTMENT; ADULT ScHOoL MOovEMENT; 
AqagoGA AND AMOMA BIBLE CLASSES; 
Baraca-PHILATHEA BIBLE CLASSES; 
DREXEL BIDDLE BIBLE CLASSES; ORGAN- 
IZED ADULT CLASSES; WESLEY ADULT 
BIBLE CLASSES. 


BIBLE, HOW THE TEACHER SHOULD 
KNOW THE.—A subject must be known 
thoroughly to be taught aptly, and true 
knowledge cannot be gained without 
proper study. The method of study must 
be appropriate to the nature of the sub- 
ject. We must understand what the Bible 
is, before we can know and teach it as we 
ought. The purpose of this article is to 
show briefly and simply how the rules of 
study rest on the facts about the Bible. 

1. The first fact that many teachers 
practically ignore, even when they are not 
actually ignorant of it, is that the English 
Bible is a translation. No language is an 
exact equivalent of any other; the mean- 
ing of the words in one speech cannot be 
completely transferred into the words of 
another. Various renderings of the same 
original are possible. A knowledge of the 
original tongues—Hebrews and Greek— 
in which the Holy Scriptures were written, 
is the condition of the most effective 
study; but when that is impossible much 
may be gained by a careful use of the Re- 
vised Version, including interpretations 
given in the margin, into which some of 
the better renderings have been placed by 


Bible and the Teacher 


the conservatism of the revisers. Help 
_may also be gained from a comparison of 
the Revised Version with some of the 
modern versions, as the T’wentieth Cen- 
tury New Testament, Moffatt’s A New 
Translation of the New Testament and 
Weymouth’s The New Testament in 
Modern Speech. Unsuitable as in some 
_ respects these versions are for use in public 
worship, they do sometimes help to bring 
out a shade of meaning that the more 
familiar Authorized or Revised Versions 
may fail to convey. ‘Those who have 
knowledge of one or more foreign tongues 
will find it useful to read the passage they 
are studying in a language other than 
their own. Something may be gained also 
by a knowledge of some of the peculiarities 
of structure of Hebrew and Greek, as, for 
instance, that Hebrew has not past, pres- 
ent, and future tenses in verbs, but only 
two distinct forms to distinguish action 
regarded as continued or as completed; or 
that Greek with such tenses can even dis- 
tinguish action as being begun, kept on, 
or ended. It need hardly be added that 
the use of a commentary will be found 
invaluable. 
2. The second fact that must be taken 
‘into acount is that the Greek and Hebrew 
originals, of which the English Bible is 
the translation, were not printed books, 
where every copy agrees with every other, 
but manuscripts, in which there are vari- 
ant readings. It is beyond the province 
of this article to sketch even the history 
of textual criticism, as the study of these 
manuscripts and their differences is called. 
Numerous as are these variant readings, 
and important as some of them are, yet 
the certainty of the divine revelation in 
the Scriptures, or the value of its moral 
and religious teaching is not at all affected 
by them. The student of the Bible who 
wants both a minute and an accurate 
knowledge cannot neglect them. Here 
again the use of the Revised Version and 
_its margin is to be commended. 
3. The third fact that should be ob- 
vious, but is obscured in the common use 
of the Bible in the pulpit as well as in 
the class, is this, that no verse, passage, 
or chapter can be properly understood 
apart from its context. In the study of 
the. context the division into verses and 
chapters in the Authorized Version needs 
to be ignored ; and the arrangement of the 


Bible and the Teacher 


Revised Version in paragraphs must be 
substituted; but that even is inadequate 
unless there be before the mind of the stu- 
dent the plan of the writing as a whole. 
Some of the writings, it is true, are 
marked by a much more careful arrange- 
ment than others; thus the Epistles of 
Paul show a plan such as is not to be 
found in the Epistles of John. The Bible 
has a unity as a whole, and each writing 
is best understood as it is put in its proper 
literary and historical relation to the 
other writings. Thus we might for clear- 
ness of thinking distinguish an immediate, 
a proximate, and an ultimate context. 
The limits of the first cannot be rigidly 
fixed. It might be a single paragraph, or 
it might be a number of paragraphs con- 
taining a continuous narrative, or a sus- 
tained argument. The proximate context 
would be at least the writing in which 
the passage being studied is found, or at 
most all the writings of the same author. 
The ultimate context would be the Bible 
as a whole, not studied as the books are 
arranged in the volumes in our hands, but 
in the historical order as exhibiting the 
progress of divine revelation. In the 
study of these contexts, a number of other 
facts emerge which must be fully recog- 
nized: these are the literary character of 
a writing, the personal characteristics of 
the writer, the historical circumstances, 
and the history of revelation. (See Bible 
in the S. 8S.) 

4, Accordingly, the fourth fact to be 
emphasized is that the Bible is not a text- 
book of morality or religion, written 
throughout in a literal, prosaic, didactic 
form, but a library of literature of varied 
kinds, requiring, according to the kind, 
different ways of interpretation. Poetry 
is not to be explained as prose; history 
and doctrine are not to be treated by the 
same method; prophecy, like the book of 
Amos, is to be understood otherwise than 
apocalyptic, as the book of Daniel; the 
prophet delivers the message of God in 
judgment or mercy, the psalmist responds 
in praise or prayer to God’s dealings with 
him. Many of the writings on the book of 
Revelation are monuments of human folly 
and error, just because they do not recog- 
nize that it belongs to the class of apoc- 
alypses which present contemporary his- 
tory and its immediate or anticipated 
issues in highly artificial, but commonly 





) 


Bible and the Teacher 98 Bible and the Teacher _ 


recognized, symbolic forms. In history 
we are concerned with the order of events, 
and their connections as cause and effect. 
The teaching of the prophets cannot be 
understood unless we place them in their 
historical setting. Modern scholarship 
with its deciphering of the inscriptions on 
ancient monuments, has recovered so 
much of the contemporary history as 
makes the prophets much more intelli- 
gible to us. There are sayings of Jesus 
which “whoso runneth can read,” but 
there are utterances, especially the par- 
ables, when the historical occasion is the 
clue to the meaning. The parables are 
not cunningly constructed allegories, in 
which some moral or religious truth lurks 
hidden under each detail of the narrative 
waiting to be detected by the ingenuity of 
the expositor; but simple, and even 
homely illustrations of the lesson of faith 
or duty that the immediate circumstances 
called for. ‘To treat the Psalms as divine 
communications instead of as the human 
appeals and responses to God’s revelation, 
is to miss their significance and interest. 
The discourses of the prophets are for the 
most part poetical and not prosaic in 
form—outbursts of passionate’ feeling 
rather than unfoldings of argumentative 
thought. In Paul’s letters we have con- 
tinued arguments; but even here we must 
not forget that his logical methods, as a 
Jewish rabbi, are not always ours. These 
illustrations must suffice to show that the 
first question we must ask about a passage 
after we have got the best renderings and 
readings is this: To what kind of litera- 
ture does it belong, is it prose or poetry, 
history or doctrine, prophecy or apoca- 
lypse, divine oracle or human petition? 
Only when we have answered this question 
are we in a position to apply the method 
of study appropriate to it. When we 
think of all the errors and controversies 
about doctrine which have resulted from 
misinterpretations of the Bible, we cannot 
be too insistent in urging this considera- 
tion. Within the necessarily restricted 
limits of this article, it is evidently impos- 
sible to pass in review all the kinds of lit- 
erature in this Divine Library, and to 
state fully the method of study appropri- 
ate to each; but the illustrations already 
given should suffice by way of suggestion 
at least. (See Bible Study, Place of, 
in the Preparation of the S. 8S. Teacher.) 


5. The fifth fact to be emphasized 
may seem to bring us on more disputable 
ground; but even those who hold a theory 
of inspiration which logically involves 
that the writers in the Bible were but 
penmen of the Holy Ghost, writing to 
divine dictation, admit the differences in 
the personal characteristics of the writers. 
They admit that John did not write like 
Matthew, nor Peter speak like Paul, and 
assume that we can infer what manner of 
men they were from the way in which 
they wrote or spoke. In reading the 
Bible we cannot escape the impression 
that the divine communication comes 
through human channels which do not 
lose their individual peculiarity, but pre- 
serve their personal characteristics. It is 
not necessary here to show the bearing of 
that upon our theory of inspiration. 
Sufficient for our present purpose is it to 
insist that the divine Spirit does not sup- 
press, but develops human personality in 
all its individual distinctiveness. All the 
teaching of Jesus is suffused by the radi- 
ance of his perfect moral character. His 
filial religious consciousness, his saving 
grace towards men! In Paul we have a 
keen intellect and a strong will, but also 
a passionate heart, both intense in emo- 
tion, and generous in affection; and we 
cannot understand his letters if we treat 
him as a cold-blooded thinker; his expe- 
rience vitalizes his doctrine. When we 
know the man, there are passages in his 
writings, of which we shall seek the emo- 
tional impulse rather than the logical con- 
nection. A modern instance may make 
this statement clearer. Browning seems 
to some of his readers incomprehensible, 
but in most instances that is due to the 
fact that he is seeking to follow the actual 
movement of thought which is not logical, 
but is emotionally determined. As feel- 
ings swiftly come and go, so the thought 
that accompanies them abruptly changes. 
This is only one instance, but perhaps the 
most conspicuous, of the necessity of dis- 
covering the man in the writing, and of 
understanding the writing through the 
man. ‘T'wo enforcements of this principle 
of study may be added. First, how it in- 
creases the human interest of the Bible! 
To know and feel ourselves in touch with 
living men, suffering, struggling, search- 
ing, but also comforted, conquering and 
attaining is to make the Bible live for us. 


b 
' 
4 


Bible and the Teacher 


Secondly, how it also increases the divine 
significance! For it presents to us God 

in the life and the heart of man, enlight- 

ening, saving, perfecting, blessing. 

6. Men do not think, feel, live, speak 
nor write in isolation and independence. 
Human personality \is conditioned by 
human history; the inward life is affected 
by the outward lot. Divine revelation as 
through man, and for man, is historical 
in events as well as persons. Each book 
of the Bible is conditioned both by the 
general historical circumstances of the 
writer, and by the special historical cir- 
cumstances of the readers or hearers to 
whom it is addressed. Accordingly our 
sixth fact, not to be neglected, is that each 
writing has an occasion, and a purpose de- 
termined by that occasion. Not one of 
the inspired writers was a man of letters 
by profession. Not one of the inspired 
writings has a timeless scientific or di- 
‘dactic interest. Even the teaching of 
Jesus, universal in value, permanent in 
validity, is affected both in context and 
form by contemporary Judaism. Even 
‘Paul’s Epistle to the Romans must not be 
regarded as a theological treatise, com- 
posed by him because he wanted to give 
an adequate literary expression to his own 
theological thought. Even in the Gospels 
it is not a biographical interest that dom- 
Inates, but a religious purpose to prove 
Christ’s claim on men. There are writ- 
Ings, such as many of the Psalms, and 
other didactic and devotional literature, 
of which the historical circumstances can 
only be conjectured; but the prophetic 
discourses and the apostolic writings for 
the most part offer sufficient internal 
evidence, apart from any external that 
may be at our disposal, to enable us to 
recover the historical situation. The 
prophets mean much more to us as preach- 
ers to their own times, interpreting the 
course of events according to the divine 
intention of mercy or judgment, than they 
did or could mean as expounders of ab- 
stract moral or religious truth. Paul’s 
letters are much more intelligible as the 
occasional writings of a missionary and a 
pastor, than as the formal treatises of a 
theologian or a moralist. To study any 
book of the Bible aright we must get an 
answer to such questions as when, where, 
by whom, on what occasion, for what pur- 
Pose, was this written? 


Bible and the Teacher 


7. The last fact that we must keep 
before us is that these writings are in- 
cluded in one book not by human accident, 
but we may with all reverence say, divine 
providence, for in them we have the lit- 
erature that records and expresses the pro- 
gressive divine revelation, which has its 
consummation in Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Each writing gains in significance and 
value as part of that larger whole. To 
give only two instances: We can under- 
stand Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel properly 
only as we place them in their prophetic 
succession, each continuing the work of 
the other. We can understand the faith 
in Jesus Christ in its growth only as we 
can place the Gospels in their historical 
connections. For such a study of the 
Bible we must get away altogether from 
the arrangement of the books of the Bible 
in the volume in our hands; for the ar- 
rangement is altogether arbitrary. The 
first step to the historical view of the 
Bible as a whole is to trace the process by 
which the Canon was formed, the gradual 
recognition and collection of scriptures as 
sacred in the Jewish and the Christian 
Church. But we cannot rest there. The 
next step must be to try and arrange these 
writings in chronological order. This 
task cannot yet be finally accomplished, 
for there are still many differences of 
opinion among scholars about dates and 
authorship. In the Pentateuch, for in- 
stance, we would need to separate earlier 
and later sections. But we can study most 
of the prophets and the apostolic writings 
in order of time; and so can trace 
“through the ages the increasing purpose” 
of God, the preparation for, the testimony 
to, and the interpretation of the Son of 
God as man and as the Savior and Lord of 
men. 

If this seems too ambitious a program 
three considerations to commend it may 
be urged: First, it is best always to aim 
at perfection even if we cannot altogether 
attain to it; at least let us try to attain 
as nearly as we can. Secondly, the 
teacher is most effective when he knows 
as thoroughly as he can his subject as a 
whole. Any one passage will be taught 
better, if the context is present to the 
teacher’s mind in the widening range sug- 
gested above. Thirdly, the aids to this 
study are available. For 6d and 1/- (36 
cents) handbooks are published which. 


Bible in the Schools 


deal with the various aspects of the sub- 
ject, and the expenditure of from 15/- 
to 20/- ($3.60 to $4.80) would equip a 
teacher with a library that would enable 
him in the best way to study the Bible in 
all its parts and as a whole. The oppor- 
tunity confers the obligation that the 
teacher should be “complete, furnished 
completely unto every good work.” (See 
Bible, Significance of the, in Religious 
Education. ) 
A. E. GARvIE. 
References : 
Adeney, W. F. The Construction of 
the Bible. (New York, 1898.) 
Adeney, W. F. How to Read the 
Bible. (New York, 1897.) 
Dunning, A. E. Making of the 
Bible. (Boston, c1911.) 
Mutch, W. J. History of the Bible. 
Ed. 3. (Boston, ¢1901-12.) 
Smyth, J. P. How God Inspired the 
Bible. Ed. 3. (London, introd. 1892.) 
Smyth, J. P. How We Got Our 
Bible. (London, 1907.) 


BIBLE IN THE SCHOOLS.—SEz 
FRANCE, Morat TEACHING IN THE PUBLIC 
ScHooLs IN; Pusiic (ELEMENTARY) 
ScHoots (ENGLAND), RELIGIOUS 'TEACH- 
ING IN THE; PuBLic ScHooLs (UNITED 
States), Morau INSTRUCTION IN THE. 


BIBLE IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.— 
The original design of the Sunday school 
was not primarily to teach the Bible. It 
was to teach reading, writing, and reli- 
gion to poor children. The Bible, how- 
ever, was from the first used as a text- 
book in the schools, as it also was at that 
time in the secular schools. The ultimate 
object of the schools was the formation 
of character, and the Bible was regarded 
as an essential means for this purpose. 
Not until the Sunday school ceased to be 
regarded as a substitute for the secular 
school could it properly be called the 
Bible school. At the beginning of the 
nineteenth century the Sunday school was 
largely devoted to the memoriter learning 
of hymns and Bible passages, with little 
explanation of their meaning. When, in 
all the Christian world, the ideal of reli- 
gious education was the memorizing of a 
catechism, nothing else could be expected 
in the Sunday school. The first step in 
advance was taken in 1810, by Dr. James 


100 


Bd 
Bible in the Sunday School 


Gall (gq. v.), of Edinburgh, in a plan 
which he called ‘“Nature’s Normal 
School,” where “normal” means natural, 
He arranged a series of short Bible stories, 
with explanations, questions, and answers, 
This seems to be the forerunner of our 
systems of Bible lessons and helps. The 
lessons, however, were wholly detached, 
without connection or continuity. Dr. 
Gall’s lessons were widely adopted in 
Great Britain and America. With their 
use, the first period of experiment closes. 

In America, a period followed when 
most of the schools were content to use 
lesson systems put into their hands from 
outside the school itself. In 1826, the 
American Sunday School Union pub- 
lished the first of its lesson books. These 
were the most systematic yet produced, 
and had a very wide use through many 
years. This was the beginning of systems 
of connected and consecutive Bible study. 
In time the Union issued a series of thir- 
teen small Question Books, covering the 
entire Bible, and graded to meet the needs 
of various ages. The method, however, 
was the same in each; printed questions, 
with or without answers and Bible refer- 
ences. ‘The questions were often skill- 
fully developed, and, in the upper grades, 
the Biblical knowledge called forth was 
large. Pedagogically, they were much 
better “helps” than many which were 
later furnished to classes. The system 
rested upon a “Child’s Scripture Question 
Book,” which covers somewhat baldly the 
entire Bblical history. The twelve books 
which follow cover the Bible, five being — 
given to the Old Testament, six to the 
New, and the last being a general review. 
The Introductions emphasize the value 
of uniform lessons for the whole school, 
with graded use in the classes, the advis- 
ability of dividing the lessons if they prove 
too long, and suggest monthly reviews and 
teachers’ meetings. Most of the volumes 
contain this sentence, italicized in the In- 
troduction: “The great object of a book 
of questions is, to excite the mind to a 
careful and thorough examination of the 
Scriptures.” 

Grading was provided for by the use 
of smaller type for the more advanced 
questions, and the teacher was encouraged 
to “ask many questions not in the book,” 
and “to explain the meaning of each 
verse.” That the questions taught theol-. 


_ Bible in the Sunday School 


ogy as well as the Bible was not a defect, 
but a merit, in the eyes of that genera- 
tion. Though widely used, the Sunday 
School Union lessons never held complete 
sway. During the latter portion of their 
_use—from 1840 to 1870—other systems 
were in the field so extensively that this 
may be called the second period of experi- 
ment. Some denominations found the 
Union lessons illy adapted for their pur- 
poses. The Episcopal Church, which had 
begun to use them, soon desired a system 
fitted to the needs of the church year. 
(See Protestant Episcopal Church.) 
The Lutheran and Unitarian churches, 
and the Society of Friends, as they took 
up the work of the Sunday schools, be- 
gan to prepare their own lessons. Inde- 
pendent lessons were also continually in 
_the field, and grew more common during 
the latter part of the period. 

In method they were all much the same 
as the Union lessons—questions, with or 
without answers, and sometimes with 
Scripture passages and hymns to learn. 
Some were based upon church catechisms, 
and all combined doctrinal teaching with 
Biblical instruction. They were often 
prepared by men of note in their genera- 
tion.. The popular commentator, Albert 
Barnes (q. v.), prepared a series of Ques- 
tion Books on the New Testament. The 

striking thing in all this group of les- 
sons is their uniform use of the catechet- 
ical method. At last the Sunday school 
began to demand a different method. In- 
dividual schools experimented. Some com- 
mitted seven or fourteen verses a week to 
memory, then studied the verses in any 
way the teacher saw fit. (See Verse-a- 
Day System.) In various ways schools 
were trying to thrust aside question books, 
and stand face to face with the Bible 
itself. 

In 1866, Dr. J. H. Vincent (gq. v.) 
published a series of lessons in the Sun- 
day School Teacher. The plan involved 

_a two years’ course covering the life of 
Christ. The lessons were short sections 
of from eight to fifteen verses. Home 
Teadings and golden texts were chosen, 
and notes on the passage were published. 
These lessons were an advance on any 
previously published in helpfulness to 
teachers. Above all, they were designed 
to lead the classes back to the Bible, which 
the question books had almost supplanted. 


101 


Bible in the Sunday School 


They were the greatest contribution an 
individual had made to progressive Bible 
study since the work of Dr. Gall in 1810. 
Here lies the beginning of the Interna- 
tional Lesson System, for Dr. Vincent and 
his methods were a great factor in the 
formation of the International Lesson 
Committee. (See Lesson Committee.) 
The purpose of this committee was to 
provide lessons insuring the direct study 
of the Bible itself. To this end the com- 
mittee published no helps, only a list of 
Bible lessons, leaving the supply of helps 
to be provided by denominational and in- 
dividual enterprise. A plea was made in 
the committee for graded lessons, but 
after discussion, uniform lessons were 
adopted. (See Uniform Lesson System.) 
The principles of the system, so far as the 
Bible is concerned, were these: (1) The 
selection of short sections, so far as may 
be complete in themselves, for the Bible 
Jessons. (2) Uniform lessons for the 
whole school. (3) The whole Bible in- 
cluded in the lessons in six (later seven) 
years. (4) Alternations quarterly or 
semiannually between the Old and New 
Testaments. 

In practical working this resulted in 
so fragmentary a study of the Bible that 
any general grasp of the significance of 
a Biblical book, or of the trend of an his- 
toric period, became almost totally lack- 
ing in the average Sunday school; and 
was inadequately carried out. Lesson 
helps, good and bad, became very abun- 
dant, and in the enterprise of ambitious 
publishers, the very foundation of the 
system was in part overturned, and the 
Bible was once more largely supplanted 
by the lesson help. For a whole genera- 
tion the International Lesson System 
stood unchanged. ‘That which, in its 
earliest years, marked a great advance, 
now became a heavy burden, impeding 
progress. The ambition to lead was lost 
and the Committee rested content in the 
belief that the system still met the needs 
of the lower and poorer half of the Sun- 
day-school world. Meantime pedagogy 
was making great strides, and educators 
were demanding the reconstruction of 
lesson plans and teaching methods. The 
feeling was widespread that to this system 
was largely due the intellectual disrepute 
into which the Sunday school had fallen 
among thoughtful people. This situation 


Bible in the Sunday School 


thus brought about the third period of 
experiment. 

Certain denominations had for years 
been developing their own systems, and in 
many cases had excellent courses, but the 
rigid walls of sectarianism kept other de- 
nominations from using them. Individual 
classes and the better schools, however, 
began making their own courses. A few of 
these spread to other schools. The earli- 
est to find a wide acceptance was the Bible 
Study Union Lesson (q. v.) system, orig- 
inated by Rev. Erastus Blakeslee (q. v.), 
in Spencer, Mass. It differed from the 
International Lesson System in the use 
of graded lessons, in the inclusion of 
longer passages in a single lesson, and in 
a closer continuity between the lessons. 
These lessons have had a wide use, and 
the courses have kept pace with the de- 
mands for improvement. 

During this period of experiment, which 
is still (1914) in progress, many other 
courses have appeared. In general, they 
are far better, both in content and method, 
than the courses of any previous period. 
They take account, on the one side, of the 
demand for a more comprehensive and 
definite knowledge of the Bible, and on 
the other, of the findings of educational 
psychology in their adjustments to the 
needs of different ages and grades of 
pupils. 

This article cannot undertake to present 
detailed information on Biblical subjects. 
That should be sought in Dictionaries of 
the Bible and other helps. There 1s, how- 
ever, a minimum of Biblical knowledge 
which every Sunday-school teacher should 
possess. He should not wait to be urged 
to obtain it, but should seek it as one of 
the prime requisites for effective work. 
The very acceptance of the teacher’s office 
lays upon the teacher the obligation to 
secure an adequate background of knowl- 
edge. This article aims to suggest the 
fields in which this knowledge lies. 

Kinds of Literature in the Bible. The 
recognition of various kinds of literature 
is most important for Sunday-school 
work. It is unfair to judge one kind of 
literature by the standards of another. 
A narrative embodying ancient traditions 
is not to be judged like contemporary his- 
tory, nor a letter like an essay. Many 
apparent difficulties disappear when the 
literature of the Bible is classified, and 


102 


only the qualities which belong to its own | 


class are demanded of any particular pas- 
sage. 
rate history from stories, 
treatises from letters, 
from apocalypse. 
convenient literary divisions: 

1. Story literature. A. The stories of 
the historical books, from Genesis to II 
Kings. Since the purpose of the authors 
was to teach religious truths rather than 
to narrate events, the books are properly 
regarded as story rather than as history. 
This does not imply that the stories are 
fiction. The authors turn first, for their 
religious lessons, to the ancient traditions 
of their nation; then the books come grad- 
ually down through the more recent his- 
tory, till at last Il Kings ends with the 
fall of Jerusalem, an event evidently 
within the experience of the writer. 
Many of these stories had been often told 
and retold among the people; and, be- 
cause of their popular character and the 
literary skill and religious earnestness of 
the writers, they have come to be the most 
excellent religious teaching in story form 
in the world, outside the parables of Jesus. 

B. Literary tales. 
Old Testament books, each a single short 
story, told with greater elaboration and 
more literary form than most of the tales 
of the historical books. They also have 
each a distinct purpose in teaching, and 
in this purpose, not in the mere facts pre- 
sented, lies the real value of the books. 
They are Ruth, Jonah and Esther. 

C. The apocalyptic stories of the book 
of Daniel, written to inspire confidence 
in God at a time of discouragement. 

D. The parables of Jesus; the most 
simple and vivid stories for religious 
teaching in the Bible. 

2. Prophetic sermons. Much of the 
story-literature is prophetic in teaching, 
but aside from that, there is a body of 
literature, largely oratorical in form, in 
the books commonly called prophetic. 
They comprise the books from Isaiah to 
Malachi, except Lamentations, Daniel, and 
Jonah. They are mainly fragments of 
addresses, often very terse and fiery, usu- 
ally difficult to interpret correctly unless 
the historical background is known. On 
this account they have never been favorite 
Sunday-school material. They are, how- 
ever, so full of ethical and religious teach- 


nor prediction 


Bible in the Sunday Schoo] 


The reader will not demand accu- | 
theological 


The following are 


A small group of 


Bible in the Sunday School 


ing, especially as applied to political and 
social life, that for the senior and adult 
classes they are well worth the study neces- 
sary to appreciate their value. 

3. Priestly literature. This includes, 
not merely the laws, but certain narratives 
in the Pentateuch, written to enforce the 
religious rites of Israel; like Gen. 1. 1 to 
2. 4 (the sabbath), Ex. 12 (the passover). 
It includes also Chronicles, Ezra, and 
Nehemiah. The priestly literature is 
written to exalt the organized worship of 
Israel; the priesthood, the temple, its 
sacrifices and rites. Even the narrative 
portions are so written as to glorify the 
religious, rather than the political organ- 
ization of the nation. 

4. Poetry. Hebrew poetry is to be 
judged by Oriental rather than Occidental 
standards. The form of Hebrew poetry is 
parallelism, a relation of thought between 
two or more lines. This may be (1) repe- 
tition of the thought (synonymous), as 
The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness 

thereof ; 

The world, and they that dwell therein. 

(2) Contrast of thought (antithetic), as 

The Lord knoweth the way of the right- 
cous, 

But the way of the wicked shall perish. 

(3) Completion of thought (synthetic), 


as 
As the hart panteth after the water 
brooks, 
So panteth my soul after thee, O God. 
By parallelism verse may often be detected 
in the midst of prose, as Ruth 1:16-18. 
In the prophets prose often passes imper- 
ceptibly into verse. The poetical books 
are Psalms and Song of Songs (lyric), 
Lamentations (elegy), Proverbs and most 
of Job (wisdom). 

5. Wisdom. The wisdom writers set 
forth a religious view of the practical 
problems of life. They are ethical rather 
than philosophical, and ignore both the 
priestly and the national sides of the reli- 
gion. They are broadly humanistic. 
This gives them an immediate, universal 
application seldom found elsewhere in the 
Old Testament. The abstract character 
of this literature makes it, while very 


pregnant with meaning, less adapted for. 


the use of children. It is condensed, epi- 
gtrammatic, with occasional touches of 
humor, abounding in simile but without 
story, except in the tale in which the wis- 


ee 


103 


Bible in the Sunday School 


dom poems of Job are set. Older classes 
might well use this literature much more 
than they have thus far. The wisdom 
books are Proverbs (poetry), Job (mostly 
poetry), and Ecclesiastes (mostly prose). 

6. Apocalyptic. A literature which 
arose as prophecy declined, written at 
times of great national and religious 
danger, and designed to strengthen men’s 
faith in the power of God, even though 
the forces of evil seemed on the verge of 
triumph. It inspires faith in the final 
victory of right and the defeat of wrong. 
Sometimes it uses story, as in Daniel 1-6, 
but its more frequent form is vision, in 
which past history, present conditions, and 
the writer’s glowing hopes for the future, 
are thrown into a vision which is usually 
attributed to some hero of the past. The 
visions are often spectacular and some- 
times even grotesque in form. ‘The 
trumpet call to faith is the thing which 
should be emphasized in all Sunday- 
school use of apocalypse. This literature 
was abundant from about 200 B. C. to 
about 150 A. D., but only two books 
represent it in the Bible, Daniel and 
Revelation. Apocalyptic thought and 
style appear also in Mark 13 and parallels, 
and in II Thes. 2:1-12. 

% New Testament narrative. The 
Gospels are not lives of Jesus, nor is Acts 
a full history of the early church. The 
Gospels are memoirs, each written from 
a somewhat different point of view. Acts © 
is the story of the passage of Christianity 
from a Jewish sect to a religion in the 
Gentile world. These books have been 
used in the Sunday school more than all 
the rest of the Bible together, and there 
is much superficial acquaintance with 
them, but for that very reason the Sun- 
day-school teacher should give them a 
specially thorough study. A superficial 
knowledge is the most blighting form of 
ignorance. 

8. Hpistles. This includes both the real 
letters of Paul and the books, like He- 
brews and James, which are more in the 
nature of treatises. The genuine letters 
of this group are marked by the sponta- 
neity which belongs to all letter writing. 
A letter is one side of a written conversa- 
tion, and must not be judged like a book. 
By its very nature it is personal and in- 
formal; its style is loose and the theme is 
not treated exhaustively. In these things 


Bible in the Sunday School 


lies its charm. In Sunday-school use the 
principles of conduct which lie behind 
the particular subjects discussed should 
be sought, as well as the special circum- 
stances which called out the letter. 

The Synoptic Problem. Since the first 
three are so extensively used in the Sun- 
day school, the simple facts regarding 
their origin and relation should be fa- 
miliar. That they are not wholly inde- 
pendent is shown by their use of so large 
a number of the same incidents; by their 
frequent similarity in the order of inci- 
dents and in the wording. At the same 
time, the similarity is not so great that 
they could have been copied bodily from 
each other, or from their common sources, 
as parts of Chronicles have been copied 
from Samuel and Kings. The task of 
determining the relation in which these 
writings stand to each other constitutes the 
synoptic problem. The details of this 
problem are very complex, and scholars are 
far from unanimity regarding them. The 
main lines of the solution offered are fairly 
simple, and most scholars are agreed upon 
them. (1) Of our present Gospels, Mark 
is the oldest. (2) Mark is a source for 
Matthew and Luke. (8) Aside from 
Mark, Matthew and Luke have at least 
one other source (perhaps several) in com- 
mon. One was probably a memoir, com- 
posed largely of the teachings of Jesus, 
written by the apostle Matthew. (4) 
Matthew and Luke each have other inde- 
pendent sources, not in common. (5) 
Mark probably comes in part from the 
stories told by Peter, for whom Mark is 
said, by an ancient writer, Papias, to have 
been an “interpreter.” It follows from 
these things that for matter common to 
the three, Mark is the best, because the 
original, source. In matter common to 
Matthew and Luke only, sometimes one is 
better and sometimes the other. 

The Inspiration of the Bible. During 
the period of the development of the Sun- 
day school there has been a widespread 
change in the theory of the inspiration of 
the Bible. At the beginning of Sunday- 
school history, inspiration was generally 
regarded as verbal and as applying to 
the entire content of the Bible, and so 
strict and literal as to insure the verbal 
accuracy and the absolute freedom from 
error of every statement, both as to reli- 
gious teaching and as to historic or scien- 


104 


by NM 
anh 


y 





Bible in the Sunday School 


tific fact. Such an interpretation was 
supposed to be a necessary inference from 
the acceptance of the Bible as the word. 
of God. Soon after the rise of the Sun- 
day school there began to be indications 
of a new attitude toward the Bible. The 
poet Coleridge first expressed it in Eng- 
lish. He found the proof of inspiration 
in its appeal to the spiritual needs of men. 
“The Bible is inspired because it inspires 
me,” was the sum of his plea. Calvin 
had long before said much the same thing, 
Then came the growth of science and the 
modern historical study of the Bible, 
and men began to feel that if the reli- 
gious value of the Bible was to be saved, 
there must be a restatement of the 
doctrine of inspiration. The old state- 
ment had been: The Bible is the word 
of God; the word of God is perfect, 
therefore the Bible is perfect. Reinter- 
pretation was made along two lines. 
Some said: The Bible contains the word 
of God; the word of God is perfect; but 
since not all the Bible is the word of 
God, it is not all perfect. Another 
method of solving the difficulty was this: 
The Bible is the word of God, but the 
word of God came through men; therefore 
it is not always perfect. Human imper- 
fections necessarily inhere in any word of 
God spoken through a human medium. 
Both of these theories preserved the 
religious value of the Bible, while no 
longer insisting upon its historical and 
scientific accuracy. Meantime the study 
of comparative religion has brought to the 
knowledge of Christian scholars the sacred 
books of other religions, and it is clearly 
seen that, while these contain much that 
is good, yet the Bible surpasses any other 
of the world’s sacred books in the abun- 
dance and power of its moral and religious 
teaching. Many still hold the old view. 
In general, the Sunday school has been 
very conservative on this doctrine. This 
conservatism, however, while undoubtedly 
having a steadying effect upon the pop- 
ular mind, has sometimes done harm. It 
has tended to an undesirable degree to 
ground the faith of the young people, 
not in the Bible, but in a theory about 
the Bible. When later they have found 
some of these views not tenable in the 
light of the scholarship of the present 
day, they have supposed that in giving up 
these theories they were giving up faith 


= 
— : 
ee 


Bible in the Sunday School 


itself. There have been tragedies of faith 
in the minds of Sunday-school pupils, 
from which a little care on the part of 
their teachers, a little reasonable adjust- 
ment to modern conditions of Christian 
thought, would have saved them. (See 
Biblical Scholarship, Modern, and the 
Ss. 8S. 

im Sunday-school work it is well to 
recognize these prinicples: (1) There are 
yarious interpretations of the fact of in- 
spiration in the Christian world. (2) 
The church has not, in its great Protes- 
tant creeds, so defined inspiration that the 
doctrine cannot be changed. (3) The 
results of scholarly research demand a 
modification of the older definitions and 
proofs of the doctrine. (4) The Sunday- 
school teacher will best magnify this doc- 
trine, if he will simply impress upon his 
pupils the rich spiritual values of the 
Bible. (5) The teacher ought to be care- 
ful not to identify the religious value of 
the Bible with some particular theory of 
inspiration in such a way that the pupil 
shall suppose that Christian faith rests 
upon that theory. The forms of Chris- 
tian doctrine change. The need of the 
human heart for the truths of the Bible 
will remain. 

The Formation of the Bible. It is im- 
portant for the Sunday-school teacher to 
Tealize that the Bible grew up in much 
the same manner as other ancient liter- 
ature. The Bible is not a book, but a 
library, representing the growth of cen- 
turies. The separate books represent vari- 
ous types of literary development. (1) 
Some of them are made by compilation 
from previous books. In this way Chron- 
icles was formed, as may be seen by a 
comparison with Kings and Samuel, two 
of its sources. The historical books from 
Genesis to Kings (except Ruth) seem all 
to have been thus compiled. Proverbs is 
composed of eight little pamphlets of wis- 
dom writings. Psalms is the hymn book 
of the second temple, compiled, as hymn 
books are to-day, from previous hymn 
books and independent poems. The syn- 
optic Gospels are also made from other 
sources, with more editing than is found 
m the books of the Old Testament. (2) 
The prophetic books are for the most part 
collections of sayings or writings, more 
or less fragmentary, from the prophets. 
It ig natural that matter from other 


105 


Bible in the Sunday School 


prophets should often be inserted. In 
the early period, the collection was prob- 
ably made by the friends of the prophet; 
later by the prophet himself. It is, in 
part, this fragmentary character which 
makes the prophetic books the most diffi- 
cult in the Bible to read and to under- 
stand without some help. (3) Many of 
the books of the Bible, however, are direct 
productions from the pens of their 
authors. Even these were not always 
written as books. The letters of Paul 
were produced apparently with no thought 
of their becoming permanent literature, 
but only to meet the particular needs of 
the moment. Other books were written 
as books. Such, for example, as Ruth, 
Jonah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Job, Daniel, 
Acts, Revelation. It will be seen that 
these vary from short stories, like Jonah, 
to more pretentious works which rest on 
historical sources, like Acts. (See Bible, 
How the Teacher Should Khow the.) 

The Canon. The books regarded by 
any religion as its ultimate standards of 
authority are its canon. Some books in 
a canon may be more authoritative than 
others. The Hebrews regarded the Law 
as more authoritative than the later writ- 
ings, and the present Catholic Church dis- 
tinguishes between the canonical and deu- 
tero-canonical books, the last being the 
books of the Apocrypha. Protestant 
Sunday schools have been inclined, with 
the Protestant Church in general, to treat 
all the canon as being equally authorita- 
tive, though not all of equal value for 
purposes of instruction. ‘The idea of a 
canon arose among the Hebrews when the 
book of Deuteronomy, brought out from 
its hiding place in the temple, was made 
the standard of law in a vigorous reforma- 
tion of religion and life (II Kings 22, 
23). Other codes of law and collections 
of stories from the ancient time were 
gathered with this book, and by the time 
of the close of the exile, the first five 
books of the Old Testament were a definite 
canon, a basis of authority under the name 
of the Law. 

Already the words of the prophets were 
held in high esteem, and they were soon 
added as a second canon. ‘They were 
divided into the former prophets, 
(Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings), 
and the later prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, 
Ezekiel and the book of the minor proph- 


Bible in the Sunday School 


ets).. Still later, other books were added, 
under the general name of The Writings. 
This collection begins with the Psalms, 
the hymn book of the temple, and closes 
with the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, 
Chronicles, and Daniel. It is a miscella- 
neous collection and shows how easily, 
when the principle of the canon is once 
started, it extends to all the books re- 
garded as of religious value. Nobody 
ever authoritatively decided what books 
must be sacred. The canon was a slow 
growth and registers the popular religious 
estimate of the books. As late as a 
famous council of Jamnia, about 90 A. D., 
the Rabbis were still discussing whether 
Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs should 
be regarded as canonical. 

The first canon of the Christian Church 
was the Old Testament, but naturally it 
was not long before the religion began to 
develop a canon of its own. In the second 
and third centuries this canon was in the 
process of formation. As among the 
Jews, it grew out of the sense of spiritual 
values. The New Testament is that col- 
lection of Christian writings which seemed 
to the early church to possess the most 
value. Later, when the church began con- 
sciously to form reasons for the canon, 
this rules was laid down: those books 
written by apostles or the companions of 
apostles are worthy a place in the canon. 
No council determined the canon. Coun- 
cils only registered the judgment already 
formed by the church. The first books re- 
garded as authoritative were the Gospels; 
then follow the better known letters of 
Paul. A few of the shorter epistles, with 
Hebrews and Revelation, were kept out of 
the canon in one part of the church or 
another for a century or more. At last 
the growing sense of the unity of the 
church overcame objections of various 
sorts and the church universally accepted 
the canon of the majority. The only 
change made later was that, at the Ref- 
ormation, the Protestant churches re- 
jected the so-called apocryphal books. 
These books were in the Greek Old Testa- 
ment, which became the first Christian 
Bible, but were never a part of the 
Palestinian Jewish canon. 

Just before the Reformation Hebrew 
scholarship had arisen in the Christian 
Church, and the reformers regarded the 
Hebrew canon as the authoritative Old 


106 


- 
‘ 
Bible in the Sunday School 


4 
* 






| 
| 
' 
) 


‘ 
| 
' 


Testament. It is a question whether the 
proper Old Testament canon for the 


Christian Church should be that of the 


Jews of Palestine, or that of the early 


church itself. There is much to be said 
for the canon which the Catholic Church 
still keeps, the historic canon of the 
church. At least one could wish that 
the teachers and pupils of the Sunday 
school knew the better parts of the Apo- 
crypha, such as the heroic history of I 
and II Maccabees and the ripe wisdom of 
Ecclesiasticus. | 

Manuscripts. The original manuscripts 
of the Bible have long ago disappeared. 
The early Hebrew scribes were not very 
careful about either the accuracy of their 
texts, or the preservation of their manu- 
scripts. After the dispersion of the Jews, 
following the destruction of Jerusalem, 
they became more careful to preserve the 
traditions about their scriptures. At last 
a text, by no means wholly correct, be- 
came the traditional text of the Old Testa- 
ment. This is the so-called Massoretie 
Text, still preserved with great care 
among the Hebrews. One means of pres- 
ervation was the destruction of all manu- 
scripts which do not conform to it. All 
old manuscripts which had outlived their 
usefulness in the synagogues were also 
destroyed, or laid aside in a storeroom 
without care for permanent preservation. 
The result is that there are few very 
ancient manuscripts of the Old Testa- 
ment, and very little variation among 
those which do exist. 

Exactly the opposite is the situation 
with the New Testament. Here there are 
several important manuscripts written in 
the fourth and fifth centuries. Manu- 
scripts of later date exist in great abun- 
dance. There are a great variety of read- 
ings, even between the better manuscripts. 
The differences, however, do not usually 
seriously affect the sense. An entire 
science, that of New Testament textual 
criticism, has grown up about the study 
of the New Testament manuscripts, the 
results of which have been used in the 
modern revisions of the English Bible. 
It is desirable to know the best New 
Testament manuscripts. They are the 
following: The Codex Sinaiticus (s) 
found in a convent on Mt. Sinai, by the 
German scholar Tischendorf, in 1859; 
this dates from about the middle of the 


ee 


‘Bible in the Sunday School 


fourth century, and contains the whole 
New Testament. The Codex Vaticanus 
(B), in the Vatican Library at Rome. It 
also dates from the fourth century. It 
contains the New Testament, except the 
Jatter part of Hebrews, the pastoral épis- 
tles, Philemon, and Revelation. The 
Codex Alexandrinus (A). It was 
brought in 1628 from Constantinople to 
England, and now is in the British 
Museum in London. Dates from the fifth 
-eentury. Most of Matthew and some other 
parts have been lost. Codex Hphremi 
(C), now in the National Library at 
Paris. It is a palimpsest, the Biblical 
writing underlying the works of a Syrian 
-ehurch father, Ephraem, whence the name 
of the manuscript. It dates from the 
fifth century. Portions of it are lost, but 
some parts of every New Testament book 
remain. Codex Beze (D), in the Library 
of the University of Cambridge, to which 
it was given in 1581, by the Reformation 
scholar, Beza. It comes from the sixth 
century, and contains only the Gospels 
and the Acts, in both Greek and Latin, 
All these manuscripts except the last con- 
tain also parts of the Greek version of the 
Old Testament. Many other manuscripts 
have special value for certain parts of 
the Bible, but those above mentioned are 
most often referred to. 

Versions. The earliest version of the 
Old Testament was the Septuagint, 
(designated LXX), so called because of 
the tradition that it was the work of sev- 
enty translators. It was in Greek, made 
in Alexandria, not at one time, but be- 
tween the third and first centuries B. C. 
It is of great value because it preserves a 
text often different from, and sometimes 
better than, our present Hebrew Bible. 
It was this translation which became the 
first Christian Bible. In the Christian 
Church a series of Latin versions grew 
up, made from the LXX and the Greek 
New Testament. These were more or less 
imperfect, and later, feeling the need of 
a better Latin version, Jerome, who 
learned Hebrew for the purpose, revised 
them with the help of the Hebrew text of 
the Old Testament. ‘This revision, for 
which the Church owes Jerome a deep debt 
of gratitude, became the Vulgate (com- 
mon) version, authoritative to this day 
in the Roman Church. It was worth 
much to have had, for so many centuries, 


107 


Bible in the Sunday School 


a uniform version upon which all Latin 
Christendom agreed. 

Before the Reformation versions in the 
languages of the common people began to 
appear. In England, the most important 
version was that of Wycliffe, made about 
1380 from the Latin Vulgate. For 150 
years it circulated in manuscript, and 
sowed the seed of the later English love 
for the Bible. Soon after the beginning 
of the Reformation in Germany, Eng- 
land entered upon a period of remark- 
able activity in Biblical translation and 
revision, unequaled elsewhere in Europe. 
It began with William Tyndale, who 
was working at his translation in 1525, 
and who published large parts of the 
Bible before 1535. In 1536 he was 
martyred, but the seed was already bear- 
ing fruit. By 1568 no less than six im- 
portant revisions and translations had 
appeared, some of them going through 
several editions. All were based more or 
less on Tyndale’s version. None of these 
were wholly satisfactory, partly because 
the translators had inserted notes, which 
were often violently partisan. 

In 1582, the Catholics published a 
translation of the New Testament, and in 
1610, of the Old Testament. This, called 
the Douai Bible, is the English version 
used at present in the Catholic Church, 
though various editions have been subject 
to some revision. It is much like the 
authorized version, but shows the pre- 
ponderating influence of the Vulgate. 
Shortly after the accession of King James 
royal encouragement was given to a new 
revision of the Bible. It was begun in 
1611, and carried on by three groups of 
revisers, numbering ‘forty-seven in all. 
The result, since known as the Author- 
ized or King James Version, was pub- 
lished in 1611. It was not a new trans- 
lation, but a most careful revision of the 
existing English versions. It was issued 
with both royal and ecclesiastical ap- 
proval, and yet it was half a century be- 
fore it became universally used. How- 
ever, to this day the King James Version 
has never been adopted for the Psalms in 
the Church of England Prayer Book. 
During the past three hundred years this 
version has so won its way into the hearts 
and thoughts of the English-speaking 
people that it is now hard to displace it 
even by a better revision. Of course, even 


Bible in the Sunday School 


with all its excellencies of apt expression 
and musical cadence, it connot remain per- 
manently the vernacular version of a liv- 
ing language. Speech gradually changes. 
The Bible needs to be kept in accord with 
the living tongue. Scholarship grows. 
The revisers used the best manuscripts 
known to 1611, but far better ones are 
known now. 

All these things made a demand for a 
new revision. In 1870, the Convocation 
of the Church of England determined 
upon undertaking such a revision. Amer- 
ican scholars were invited to join in the 
labor, and the best Biblical scholarship of 
the two countries applied itself to the 
task. The principles of the revisers were 
conservative. All changes accepted must 
have the approval of two-thirds of the 
active body of revisers. The New Testa- 
ment was published in 1881, the Old 
Testament in 1885. The American revis- 
ers approved certain groups of changes 
which were not accepted by the British 
company, but were indicated in an ap- 
pendix. In 1901 these were incorporated 
in an edition called the American Stand- 
ard Version. Hither of these versions has 
a greater superiority over the King James 
than that had over the versions which 
preceded it. ‘That the revised versions 
print the poetic books of the Bible in 
verse form, is itself enough to justify the 
revision. They are also much more accu- 
rate representations of the original. It 
is not too much to say that with the revi- 
sions at hand, no serious study of the Bible 
should ever be based upon the King 
James Version. 

Of course the revisions themselves will 
not be final. A living language is a 
changing language. A succession of care- 
ful, scholarly versions is a wholesome 
stimulus to Bible study. Already two or 
three versions have appeared, which a 
Sunday-school class might well use for 
frequent comparison of passages. Worthy 
of mention among these are The Twen- 
tieth Century, New ‘Testament, New 
Testament in Modern Speech, and the 
revision published by the Baptist Publi- 
cation Society (1912). 

Use of the Bible in the Sunday School. 
The Bible is the natural textbook of the 
Sunday school. This is not because of 
any particular theory as to the origin of 
the book, but rather because of its actual 


108 


a 
Bible in the Sunday School 


relation to the church. It is the author- 
itative literature of the church. Her his- 
toric life, her belief, her religious inspira- 
tion are based upon it. A knowledge of 
this book is the best means the church 
can provide for the perpetuation of its 
ideals. One need not fear that the Chris- 
tian world will go hopelessly astray if the 
Bible is made the foundation of its reli- 
gious life. 

This does not mean that the Bible must 
be the only book studied in the Sunday 
school, its life the only life from which 
religious inspiration can be drawn. God 
speaks through many tongues. (See 
Extra-Biblical Studies.) The whole 
field of the religious and moral life of the 
world ought to be open to the Sunday 
school. The biography of noble men and 
women in any race or religion, the history 
of the church, missions, the religious 
movements of our own day, are all appro- 
priate subjects of Sunday-school study. 
But still the Bible should be made the 
center, and other things brought to its 
test. Seldom more than one-fourth, very 
seldom more than one-half of the lessons 
in any series of months or years, should 
be given to extra-Biblical courses. 

Certain general principles are funda- 
mental for the proper use of the Bible in 
the Sunday school: 

1. Bible study is a means to an end, not 
an end in itself. The end of Sunday- 
school teaching is moral and religious 
development. ‘To this end the Bible is 
to be used. Mere knowledge of Biblical 
facts is not in itself of moral value. A 
list of the kings of Israel has no more 
religious significance than a list of the 
kings of England. The Bible must be 
so used as to issue, directly or indirectly, 
in the training of character. 

2. The center of a proper religious study 
of the Bible les wn the discovery of the 
religious purpose of the writers. That 
the purpose of Bible study is primarily 
religious does not justify a haphazard 
and unintelligent use of Scripture. To 
try to discover the writer’s purpose, will 
hold Bible study to the real religious 
values of the portion studied. 

3. Bible study must be adapted to the 
intellectual advancement of the class. 
Not only must the different stages of 
childhood and youth be recognized, but 
also the intellectual variations among 


ie 


Bible in the Sunday School 


adult classes. Sunday-school work ought 
always to seem to a class intellectually 
dignified. Much Sunday-school teaching 
has sinned grievously in holding all the 
Sunday school to a dead level of childish- 
ness. To that, probably more than to any 
other one thing, is due the rapid deple- 
tion of classes during the adolescent 
period. 

4. The Bible represents life, and 1s not 
a series of impersonal oracles, stories, and 
sayings. Hvery writer was intent with 
some purpose, burning with some pas- 
sion. We must try to feel the man be- 
hind the book. 

5. The Bible 1s the record of the history 
of a great religious movement. It records 
the childhood, as well as the maturity, of 
this movement. It therefore contains 
varying and often imperfect points of 
view. Prophet and priest have different 
religious conceptions. Morals in early 
Israel were imperfect. Human limita- 
tions are to be expected in the writers of 
the Bible. All this shows that the Bible 
cannot be treated as an abstract collection 
of perfect maxims or philosophical truths. 
Intelligent judgment and discrimination 
must be used, if the Bible is not to be 
misused. 

6. The permanent religious value of the 
Bible lies in the principles of life which it 
discloses. They are found in two fields, 
which after all are only one: man’s rela- 
tion to God, which is religion, and man’s 
Telation to his fellow man, which is 
‘morals. Bible study should seek to find 
the underlying principles, and to translate 
them into terms of present life. 

7. The choice of Biblical material for 
Sunday-school use should be made for dif- 
ferent grades in accordance with their 
needs and interests. (See Bible, Adap- 
tation of the, in Religious Education.) 
The conclusions of the modern study of 
child psychology should be freely used by 
the Bible teachers. Some of the Bible is 
Inappropriate for some grades, while 
other parts may be used in different grades, 
but with a varying treatment. The stories 
and teachings of Christ, for example, may 
be used with every grade, but with differ- 
ent emphases and for different purposes. 
‘The Hebrew laws or the prophetic ser- 
‘Mons are inappropriate for children, but 
excellent for later adolescence or adult 
life. In general, the Bible should be used 


109 


Bible in the Sunday School 


as a story book, to teach the simple duties 
and relations of life, for little children; 
as a collection of hero tales, to inspire 
with examples of noble character, for 
older children; as teaching the funda- 
mental principles on which life is 
founded, for youths; and for adults, as an 
atd to personal and social ethics as bring- 


ing man nearer to God, who is the com- 


fort in sorrow, the source of strength in 
labor, the inspiration for all high ideals 
and their achievement. 

8. Somewhere in its course the Sunday 
school should provide for such a general 
survey of the Bible as should present an 
intelligent conception of its different 
parts, its kinds of literature, the origin 
and purpose of its books, its historic 
growth, and above all the right religious 
use of its varying kinds of literature. 
The aim should be, not to present a mass 
of details, but to enable the student to 
read the Bible with as fair intelligence as 
he reads other literature, in order that 
it may be a real help in all his later moral 
and religious life. (See Standards of 
Biblical Knowledge, in the 8S. 8.) 

What use should be made of the Bible 
outside the Sunday-school lesson depends 
largely upon what is done in the lessons. 
If the Bible teaching were ideal, and the 
pupils all remained through the entire 
course, there would be no need of dealing 
with this subject. As it is, there are vari- 
ous purposes which may be served by the 
use of the Bible in opening or closing 
exercises: (1) To impress upon the mem- 
ory the best passages of the Bible, whether 
by reading or by memorizing them. A 
Sunday school may well have a choice of 
twenty or thirty passages, which without 
undue individual labor, every pupil in 
the school shall know by heart through 
frequent use in the Sunday school. (2) 
To convey, through frequent drill, certain 
of the simpler facts about the Bible. (3) 
To gather the important teachings of 
some book or group of books or single 
writer on some subject; as Paul’s teaching 
about love, Jesus’ about the Father, or 
about prayer. (4) To bring out the 
writer’s purpose, and so the central reli- 
gious value of the book or group of books 
being studied in the school. (5) To com- 
pare material from another part of the 
Bible with the lesson of the day. 

It were better not to use the Bible at 


Bible Knowledge 


all in opening and closing exercises than 
to use it in an aimless manner. It may 
appropriately be used to gain the larger 
and more general knowledge which will 
less naturally come in the usual class 
teaching. 
I. F. Woop. 
References: 

Abbott, Lyman. The Life and Itter- 
ature of the Ancient Hebrews. (Bos- 
ton, 1902.) 

Bacon, B. W. The Making of the 
New Testament. (New York, 1912.) 

Bennett, W. H. <A Primer of the 
Bible. (New York, 1898.) 

Fowler, H. T. A History of the Int- 
erature of Ancient Israel. (New York, 

1912.) 

Kenyon, F. G. Our Bible and the 
Ancient Manuscripts. (London, 1897.) 

Meyer, H. H. The Graded Sunday 
School in Principle and- Practice. 
(New York, c1910-12.) 

Myers, A. J. W. The Old Testament 
in the Sunday School. (New York, 
1912.) 

Pattison, T. H. The History of the 
English Bible. (Philadelphia, 1894.) 

Pease, G. W. An Outline of a Bible- 
School Curriculum. (Chicago, 1906.) 

Peritz, I. J. Old Testament History. 

Rall, H. F. New Testament History. 

Ryle, H. E. The Canon of the Old 


Testament. Hd. 2. (London, 1904.) 
Stoughton, John. Our English 
Bible. (London, 1881.) 


Vincent, M. R. A History of the 
Textual Criticism of the New Testa- 
ment. (New York, 1899.) 

Wood, I. F. Adult Class Study. 
(Boston, c1911.) 

Wood, I. F. Zhe Bible as Ltter- 
ature. 

Also articles on the various subjects 
in Bible dictionaries. 


BIBLE KNOWLEDGE.—SEE StTanp- 
ARDS OF BIBLICAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE 
Ss. 8S. 


BIBLE, MANUSCRIPTS OF THE.— 
SEE BIBLE IN THE S. S. 


BIBLE MUSEUM, BIBLE CABINET, 
OR BIBLE CURIOSITIES.—A collection 
of specimens which may be gathered by 
the teachers and pupils, and used as ob- 


110 


Bible Reading 


jects to illustrate the Sunday-school les- 
sons. For example, inkstands, various 
seeds and woods, gums, nuts, sackcloth, 
garments, etc.; also models of Oriental 
articles—plow, goad, candlesticks, lamp; 
the ark of the covenant, houses, the temple 
at Jerusalem, a relief map of ancient Jeru- 
salem, ete. 

When merely defined, many articles and 
materials mentioned in the Bible do not 
convey a vivid impression of their mean- 
ing to the mind of the pupil, but when 
they can be seen and handled they become 
intelligible. However, in making use of 
any object for illustrating Scripture, the 
teacher should exercise great care not to 
divert attention from the truth being 
taught through the object to the object 
itself. (See Object Teaching.) — 

Emity J. FELL, 


BIBLE. NEW TESTAMENT.—Szrz 
BrsLE, How THE TEACHER SHOULD 
KNowW THE; BIBLE IN THE S. S.; BIBLE, 
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE, IN RELIGIous Epvu- 
CATION; New TESTAMENT, VALUE OF 
THE, IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 


BIBLE NORMAL cCOLLEGE.—Szxr 
HartrorpD ScHooL oF RELIGIOUS PEDA- 
GOGY. 


BIBLE NORMAL UNION.—See Bis- 
LICAL INSTRUCTION BY CORRESPONDENCE. 


BIBLE. OLD TESTAMENT.—SEE 
BrsLtE, How THE TEACHER SHOULD 
KNowW THE; BIBLE IN THE S. S.; BIBLE, 
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE, IN RELIGIOUS EDv- 
CATION ; OLD TESTAMENT, VALUE OF THE, 
IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 


BIBLE READING.—As a method for 
study and teaching the value of reading 
the Bible has not been properly understood 
and appreciated. Professor Richard G. 
Moulton rendered a great service in giv- 
ing to the world his Modern Readers 
Bible in which, in convenient volumes, the 
various books of the Bible are given in @ 
form excellently adapted to the method 
of reading. In these volumes explana- 
tion is reduced to the minimum, consist- 
ing only of such introductory and general 
information as is necessary to an under- 
standing of the character and aims of the 
writings, with a few notes throwing light 


Bible Reading 


upon certain expressions and passages. 
The purpose is to let the writings speak 
for themselves, giving them the chance, 


indeed, to which all literature is entitled, 
to speak directly and in a free and large 


- way to the minds of the readers. 


The naturalness of this method of Bible 
study is apparent when it is remembered 
that the contents of the Scriptures con- 
sist in the main not of matter prepared 
for minute dissection in the study of the 
scholar, but of stories and narratives orig- 
inally given by word of mouth, and dis- 
courses delivered to popular audiences. 
It is this that gives such peculiar charms 
to the Old Testament stories, They have 
the naive simplicity that characterizes 
folk-lore literature. These stories and 


narratives were first spoken, told and re- 


told by parents to their children in the 
domestic circle, repeated for generations 
by teachers to groups of pupils gathered 
about them, and by orators to assembled 
congregations. The original appeal was 


_ made through the ear, rather than through 


the eye by the agency of the written page. 
The art of writing was a very ancient art, 
undoubtedly employed long before the 


time of Moses. On the other hand a large 
_ portion of the Bible was spoken before it 


was written, and much of it was spoken 
long before it was reduced to writing. In 


_ sacred history, as in all history, the story- 


teller, the bard, and the orator preceded 


the author. 
The fact that so much of the Bible was 


given by oral method naturally suggests 


that it is likely still to make its best im- 
pression upon the mind when delivered 


to it by this method. Not silent reading, 


but reading aloud brings out the richest 
and deepest meanings of the Scriptures. 
This calls for intelligent reading into 
which the reader puts clear understand- 


ing of the meaning of what is read, with 


that warmth and color and imagination, 
and with that electric thrill of feeling 


_ which vitalizes and renders real the mes- 


Sages contained in the writings. As fully 


as possible the utterances of the sacred 
_ oracles should be reproduced as originally 
_ delivered, the spirit of the occasions under 


which the living speakers addressed them- 


selves to living men, with the sympathy, 
_ the passion, the earnestness, the persua- 
_ Slvyeness of tone, the emphasis, the subtle 
Inflection, the rhythmic cadence and 


111 


Bible Reading 


quantity of all genuine eloquence, the 
changing moods, the tenderness, the im- 
petuosity, the impulse and insistent stress 
of purpose, and all those indefinable qual- 
ities and suggestions which can be put 
into spoken language. 

This method is particularly in harmony 
with the present conviction that the Bible 
is not to be studied primarily as a body 
of theology but as religious literature. 
Whatever may be necessary from the 
standpoint of scholarship and theology 
the Bible first of all should be read as 
literature. Perhaps, for the practical 
needs of the religious life, the interpre- 
tation of the sacred writings obtained 
through reading is more important than - 
those furnished by scientific or technical 
study. Reading will not bring out a 
multitude of minute elements, and the 
method does not permit delay for those 
cross-comparisons with other Scriptures 
which is possible in the leisurely method 
of the study, nor for those reflections and 
meditations upon special words and state- 
ments which are often very profitable; 
but on the other hand, reading has the 
great advantage of bringing out the larger 
meanings and securing the mass effect of 
whole books or extensive passages. 

This method causes the inspirational 
power of the Scriptures to be felt more 
directly and mightily than through any 
other manner of approach. In no other 
way can the perspective of many portions 
of the Bible be obtained, nor the mind 
impressed with the cumulative weight and 
meaning of the author’s thoughts. In- 
telligent reading, better than any other 
method, brings out the sublime simplicity 
and the divine authoritativeness of the 
Ten Commandments. Little is necessary 
beyond the sympathetic reading of the 
book of Ruth, and only so can be expe- 
rienced the force of the great orations 
such as are found in the book of Deu- 
teronomy and many of the books of the 
Prophets; and he who would realize that 
the book of Job belongs to the highest 
class of the world’s “literature of power,” 
must read it aloud again and again. 

The method of reading is particularly 
adapted to the study of the larger part of 
the New Testament. ‘The Gospels, espe- 
cially the synoptic Gospels, are simple 
narrative-memoirs and their style indi- 
cates that they represent what began to 


Bible Reading 


be told by the apostles during the first 
years of their ministry when their preach- 
ing consisted chiefly in the witness which 
they bore to the things which they saw 
and heard. This witness was later re- 
duced to writing. Much of the material 
of Paul’s letters represents the substance 
and, to a considerable degree, the form 
of his preaching; these letters were com- 
munications and instructions which were 
intended to be delivered to the churches 
by public reading. 

Reading undoubtedly was the chief and 
most effective method of giving religious 
instruction in Old Testament times (Neh. 
8:1-8; 9:1-3), and the reading of the 
Scriptures was the most important part 
of the service of the synagogue (Luke 
4:16-20). 

A few suggestions may be made for 


the effective use of the reading method | 


for the private study of the Scriptures, 
and for teaching. For private study as 
for class instruction reading aloud, not 
silent reading, is helpful. 

1. For the purpose of the reader the 
paragraph form of the matter as given 
in the Revised Version is much better 
than the fragmentary verse form of the 
King James Version. The paragraph ar- 
rangement presents the Scriptures as lit- 
erature and makes natural reading easier. 

2. The reading at first should precede 
and be quite independent of any general 
study of the book or portion selected. 
Read as any intelligent person reads any 
other literature. 

3. The reading should be continuous 
and include a large portion. Fragmentary 
reading is the bane of Bible study. Many 
of the books of the Bible can easily be 
read in thirty minutes, some of them in 
much less time. The Book of Job, at 
the slow rate of 100 words per minute, 
can be read in less than two hours; the 
book of Genesis in six hours; Romans in 
an hour and a half; Ephesians in thirty 
minutes; 2 Samuel in three and one: half 
hours; Ruth in twenty-five minutes; He- 
brews in one hour; the three Epistles of 
John in forty minutes; James in twenty- 
four minutes. (See Bible Study, Place 
of, in the Preparation of the S. S. 
Teacher. ) 7 

4. Read as well as possible in full 
volume of voice, with clear enunciation, 
intelligent inflection, and emphasis, en- 


112 


Bible Reading Association 


deavoring to express to the ear the 
thought and feeling of the writer. Pay 
to the writing the respect of a good 
rendering, and the interest will be in- 
creased. 

5. Do not stop in the first or second 
reading for any critical study or to enter 
into any exact verbal explanation. Be 
content to let many things pass for later 
consideration. The first necessity is to 
feel the impact and weight of what is 
read. Enter heartily into the current of 
the author’s story or discussion, and go 
into its enjoyment. | 

6. If the reading method is employed 
with a class, it may require the codpera- 
tion of a teacher and a reader, the one 
to give the needed introductory informa- 
tion concerning the book or portion of the 
book to be read and the other for the 
actual reading. If, for example, the book 
of Ruth is to be read the explanation will 
be a very brief account of the social and 
political conditions which form the back- 
ground of the story; then let the reader 
tell the story with simplicity, with sym- 
pathy and understanding, throwing into it 
the warmth and color of imagination, 
(Synthetic Bible Study.) 

J. T. McFaruanp, ~ 


BIBLE READING ASSOCIATION, IN- 
TERNATIONAL.—Origin and Founder. 
In 1879, the Sunday School Union (gq. v.) 
desirous of fostering more definitely the 
spiritual work of the Sunday school, ap- 
pointed a committee to consider what ac- 
tion could be taken to accomplish this 
object. A suggestion was made for the 
formation of an organization to promote 
the regular use of a series of “Home Read- 
ings” which had been selected in connec- 
tion with the recently adopted Uniform 
or “International” Lessons; but it was 
not until two years later that the com- 
mittee was entrusted with the work of 
organizing a specially qualified agency 
which should meet the then existing need 
for the systematic study of the Word of 
God. } 

Late in 1881, arrangements were made 
and literature issued advertising this 
system which was to be called The Inter- 
national Bible Reading Union. The year 
1882 saw the issue of the first card of 
membership and the Association fairly 
started on its career. The idea now car- 


=. 


a= 


) Bible Reading Association 


_ ried into operation was suggested by Mr. 
Charles Waters, a member of the com- 
mittee, who was elected the honorary secre- 
tary of the Association and remained so 
over the long period of twenty-eight years 
_—until his decease in 1910. 
Object and Plan. The introduction of 
the International Lessons made it very 
necessary that there should be, in closest 
cooperation with their study, a specially 
selected set of Scripture readings, and 
with this object in view it was determined 
to provide a list which would be different 
from that of any similar society, in that 
it was to be of a “topical” character. An- 
other object in view was to get the Bible 
read in the homes of the people. Being 
primarily for Sunday-school pupils, their 
_minds were to be prepared for the recep- 
_tion of the lesson teaching by reading over 
passages of Scripture which should illus- 
trate, or bear upon, the passage to be 
taught on the following Sunday. These 
portions were not to be confined either to 
the Old or New Testament, but by selec- 
tions from both were to prove the unity of 
the Bible. The portion containing the 
topic, or lesson, was usually to be read on 
Monday, and thus influence the mind 
of the reader during the whole of the 
week, 
Operation and Results. The Associa- 
tion operates through branches (consist- 
ing of not less than ten persons), which 
-are formed in schools, churches and other 
organizations for Christian activity, as 
well as among private individuals, or 
those connected with houses of business, 
clubs, and public institutions, who promise 
to read the portion daily. 
A secretary is appointed who acts as 
the medium of correspondence and dis- 
tributes the Cards of membership, the 
Quarterly Circular Letters, and the 
Monthly Hints, all of which are supplied 
to the members for the very small sub- 
scription of one penny per annum. For 
a slightly larger subscription Monthly 
leaflets containing more extended “Notes” 
on the daily portions are supplied. The 
system adopted by the Association at once 
became successful ; so great was the appre- 
ciation of it that eleven thousand cards 
were issued in the first year; and this 
Lumber has continued to grow until there 
are now (1914) nearly a million members. 
Tt is truly “international,” for there is 


113 


Bible, Significance of the 


hardly a country in which it has not 
branches. The Cards of Readings printed 
in nearly forty different languages, were 
issued (during 1914) to a number in 
excess of 135,000. This total is entirely 
apart from the English Card membership. 

The results accrued and accruing 
from this work are very great. Testi- 
mony is constantly being borne to the 
value of this system of daily Bible read- 
ing as an aid to the spiritual advancement 
of the individual member. By the observ- 
ance of the system very large numbers 
of its members have been led to Christ as 
their Savior and Lord; pupils are bene- 
fited by the regular study of the lesson 
portion during the week; family worship 
is cultivated, and churches are bound to- 
gether in study and prayer. (See Home 
Daily Bible Readings.) 

8. C. BAILEY. 


BIBLE, SIGNIFICANCE OF THE, IN 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.—A study of 
the history of the Bible shows that in every 
period of its existence it has been vitally 
connected with education. Its various 
parts owed their origin to the need for 
religious instruction. ‘These parts were 
preserved, grouped into collections, and 
ultimately united in the Canon of the Old 
and the New Testament in order that they 
might serve as textbooks for training in 
religion. The transmission of the Canon 
in the Jewish and in the Christian 
Churches and its translation into all the 
languages of the world have been due to 
the desire to instruct men in the history 
and the doctrines of the Old and of the 
New Covenant. Religious education has 
been the fundamental activity of the 
Church in all ages, and the Bible has been 
first its product and then its basis. Let us 
consider, accordingly, in historical order 
the phases of the relation of the Bible to 
religious education. 

I. The Old Testament Originated in the 
Need for Religious Instruction. 1. Oral 
tradition. In the Patriarchal age before 
writing was invented the Hebrews felt al- 
ready the need of instructing their chil- 
dren in regard to God’s revelation of him- 
self in nature, in history, and in provi- 
dence; and for this purpose they made use 
of tradition which they handed down by 
word of mouth from generation to gen- 
eration. All the precious narratives of the 


Bible, Significance of the 


Book of Genesis were transmitted in this 
way, and they owed their preservation to 
the fact that they were kept constantly in 
use for the teaching of religion. Even 
after writing was invented, it was long 
known only to a few, so that the old meth- 
od of oral tradition still continued. Moses 
gave Israel exactly ten commandments in 
order that the people who repeated them 
might count them off on their fingers, and 
be sure that they added nothing and sub- 
tracted nothing. Most of the legislation 
and the history of Mosaic times came 
down in the same way, and was treasured 
by the Israelites because they employed it 
in training their children. Frequent 
reference is made in the Old Testament 
to the educational use of these traditions. 
“When thy son shalt say unto thee, What 
means this Passover? What means this 
sacrifice of firstlings? What mean these 
stones? then thou shalt say unto him, Je- 
hovah did thus and so unto your fathers” 
(Ex. 138: 6ff.; 13: 13ff.; Deut. 6: 20; Josh. 
4:6ff.). Down to the present day the 
pious Jew on memorial occasions repeats 
to his children the story of the origin of 
these observances. The early religion of 
Israel was transmitted almost entirely by 
word of mouth, and even toward the end 
of the Old Testament Malachi tells us, 
“Then they that feared Jehovah spake one 
with another” (Mal. 3:16). In the time 
of David, about 1000 B. C., the Hebrews 
first acquired the alphabet and writing be- 
came common; then they began to record 
their religious traditions. After the divi- 
sion of the kingdom in 931 B. C., a series 
of sacred histories was composed in the 
kingdom of Judah, and another series in 
the kingdom of Ephraim; and, after the 
fall of the northern kingdom in 722 B. C., 
these two series were worked together in 
the older parts of the Books of Genesis, 
Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Sam- 
uel, and Kings. 

2. The Priests. Primitive religions can 
be transmitted by tradition, but higher 
religions are compelled to set apart teach- 
ers and to give them a special training for 
their work. From the earliest times the 
Hebrews possessed the three teaching 
orders of the priests, the prophets, and 
the wise men. As late as the time of Jere- 
miah these three orders still existed, for 
we read “T'orah [instruction] shall not 
perish from the priest, nor counsel from 


114 


Bible, Significance of the 


the wise, nor the word [of the Lord] from 
the prophet” (Jer. 18:18). 

The priests were the custodians of the 
religious inheritance of the nation. They 
knew the sacred traditions, the ritual and 
the legislation. As Deuteronomy says 
(17:9) : “Thou shalt come unto the priests 
the Levites, and unto the judge that shall 
be in those days: and thou shalt inquire; 
and they shall show thee the sentence and 
the judgment . . . according to the tenor 
of the law which they shall teach thee, 
and according to the judgment which they 
shall tell thee thou shalt do.” As early as 
the time of David they were organized into 
a guild, and they trained their members 
in the literature and the institutions of 
Israel. 

The priests transmitted the téréth, or 
legal decisions, that had been given by 
Moses, and they added to them from time 
to time new decisions that were made by 
the sacred lot of Urim and Thummim. 
In grouping the tordth the priests fol- 
lowed the analogy of the Decalogue, and 
put ten similar decisions together, sub- 
dividing these into sections of five each. 
Thus memory was aided in oral transmis- 
sion by counting off the precepts on the 
fingers of the two hands. Many such 
decalogues have been incorporated into the 
later written forms of the Book of the 
Covenant (Ex. 20-30), the Holiness Code 
(Lev. 17-26), and Deuteronomy; and 
some of them are so antique in their con- 
tents that there is no difficulty in sup- 
posing that they date from the first at- 
tempt to systematize Hebrew law. 

When the knowledge of writing and of 
reading became more general, the priests 
made use of literature in the instruc- 
tion of the people. The Book of the 
Covenant in Ex. 20:23-23:33 was first 
committed to writing about 800 B. C., the 
time of King Jeroboam I and the Prophet 
Elisha. The legislation of Deuteronomy 
was written out about 650 B. C., in the 
reign of Manasseh, and makes its first ap- 
pearance in history in the book of the law 
discovered in the time of Josiah (2 Kings 
22:8) and adopted in the national as- 
sembly described in 2 Kings 23. The 
Holiness Code in Lev. 17-26 was com- 
mitted to writing about 600 B. C., shortly 
before the Exile and is first quoted by the 
Prophet Ezekiel. The code of Ezekiel 
40-48 was written during the Exile in 572 


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Bible, Significance of the 


B.C. The remaining portions of the Le- 
yitical legislation of Exodus, Leviticus, 
and Numbers were not written until about 
500 B. C., and first appear in the law book 
brought back by Hzra from Babylon 
(Ezra 7:6, 14) and adopted in the na- 
tional assembly recorded in Nehemiah 8. 
To the priests also belonged the collecting 
and recording of the prayers and hymns 
in the Book of Psalms. 

3. The Prophets. The prophets of Israel 
were men of original religious experience. 
In each generation they were called to face 
new problems, and they received from God 
the new truth that solved these problems. 
Moses faced the problem of the bondage 
in Egypt, and brought as its solution the 
message of Jehovah the redeemer. Sam- 
uel and the early schools of the prophets 
faced the problem of Canaanite civiliza- 
tion, and solved it by the declaration that 
Jehovah was the God of Canaan as well 
as the God of Sinai. The prophets of the 
eighth century faced the problems of the 
moral decline of Israel and the advance of 
Assyria, and solved them by the recogni- 
tion that Jehovah was supremely right- 
eous. The prophets of the Exile faced 
the problem of Israel’s loss of national 
existence, and solved it by the affirmation 
that Jehovah was the universal God. 
Thus the prophets were always men whose 
faces were turned toward the future. 
They were idealists and reformers, who 
demanded that Israel should move for- 
ward into new thought and new life. 

Since the time of Samuel they were or- 
ganized into associations known as the 
“sons of the prophets” in which young 
men were trained by older prophets in reli- 
. gious experience and in the doctrines of 
the prophetic theology. All the prophets 
before Amos stood in close relations to 
these prophetic guilds; and although 
Amos and his successors broke with the 
older type of prophecy, yet they themselves 
organized “schools” of followers. From 
Isaiah 8:16 we learn that Isaiah had a 
body of “disciples.” 

The prophets of the eighth and seventh 
centuries B, C., lived in an age when the 
art of writing was generally understood, 
accordingly they not only preached to the 
people but also prepared books for their 
mstruction. The writings of these great 
men in their historical order are as fol- 
lows: Amos (760 B. C.), Hosea (750), 


115 


Bible, Significance of the 


Isaiah 1-32 (740-700), Micah (722-680), 
Jeremiah (624-586), Nahum (606), 
Habakkuk (605), Ezekiel (592-570), 
Obadiah (after 586), Isaiah 40-55 (546), 
Haggai (520), Zechariah 1-8 (520-518), 
Malachi (445), Isaiah 56-66 (about 440), 
Joel and Zechariah 9-14 (after 333). 

4, The Wise Men. The wise men were 
the ethical teachers of ancient Israel. 
They sought to adapt the lessons of both 
priest and prophet to daily life. To them 
we owe the practical maxims of the book 
of Proverbs and the ethical discussions of 
Job and Ecclesiastes. Solomon was re- 
garded as their father, and this shows that 
they must have been organized into a so- 
ciety at least as early as the reign of this 
monarch. The constant form of address 
in the Proverbs, “My son,” “My sons,” 
shows that they gathered young men in 
their associations and instructed them in 
the technical Wisdom. 

They too at first depended entirely upon 
oral instruction, but subsequently, when 
writing became general, they gathered up 
their wisdom into books. The collection 
of proverbs in Proverbs 25-29 bears the 
title, “These also are proverbs of Solomon, 
which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah 
wrote out.” Another ancient collection of 
Proverbs is found in Prov. 10-24. The 
rest of the Book of Proverbs grew up later 
by gradual stages. Job was written in the 
Persian period and Kcclesiastes in the 
Greek period. 5 

II. The Canon of the Old Testament 
was Collected for Use in Religious Edu- 
cation. The higher religions have found 
it necessary to set apart not only special 
teachers but also special pupils to receive 
their instruction, that is, they have or- 
ganized schools. Schools were not found 
in pre-Exilic Israel, except for the train- 
ing of priests, prophets, and wise men, 
although tutors for individuals are men- 
tioned ; but in the post-Exilic period they 
became an essential feature of Judaism. 

During the Exilic and post-Exilic pe- 
riods the prophets gradually lost the con- 
sciousness of receiving new messages from 
God and became more and more teachers 
of the pre-Exilic religion of Israel. Thus 
the schools of the prophets gradually 
turned into the guilds of the scribes. 

A typical representative of scribalism is 
Ezra. If he had lived in an earlier period 
his enthusiasm and energy would have 


Bible, Significance of the 


made him one of the greatest of the proph- 
ets; but living when he did, he became 
merely the greatest of the doctors of the 
Law. His standing designation in the 
Book of Ezra and Nehemiah is Ezra, the 
Scribe. Of him it is said in Ezra 7:6, 
10f. that he was “a ready scribe in the law 
of Moses, which Jehovah, the God of 
Israel, had given”; and that he “had set 
his heart to seek the law of Jehovah, and 
to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes 
and ordinances.” Here we have expressed 
the three main aims of Scribalism; (1) to 
ascertain the correct ancient law, (2) to 
put it into practice, and (3) to teach 
others to observe it. 

For the realization of these aims the 
scribes devised the new agency of the syn- 
agogue. ‘This was a development out of 
the ancient public assemblies in which the 
prophets had discoursed to such hearers as 
they were able to gather. From 2 Kings 
4:23 it appears that Elijah was accus- 
tomed to hold assemblies on holidays when 
the people were able to come to hear him. 
During the Exile these assemblies became 
more frequent and more universally at- 
tended on account of the lack of the 
Temple services. The assemblies that met 
in the house of Ezekiel to hear the word 
of the Lord are the prototypes of the later 
synagogues. A more developed form of 
the same institution is seen in the as- 
sembly that Ezra and Nehemiah insti- 
tuted. In Nehemiah 8 we read how all 
the people gathered together as one man, 
how Ezra brought out the book of the law, 
and stood upon a pulpit of wood, and 
‘read it to the audience, and how he and 
the scribes that were with him interpreted 
the book as they went along and caused 
the people to understand it. Here is a 
synagogue in all its essential features. 
The synagogue was not originally a place 
of worship, but a place of instruction; it 
was not a church, but a school. The 
Temple was the only legal place for wor- 
ship, the synagogue was a place for edu- 
cation in the Law. As Schiirer remarks, 
“The main object of the Sabbath-day as- 
semblages in the synagogues was not 
public worship in the stricter sense, 7. e., 
not devotion, but religious instruction; 
and this for an Israelite was, above all, 
instruction in the Law.” Philo constantly 
speaks of the synagogue as a “house of 
instruction” in which the Jews learned 


116 


Bible, Significance of the 


their “native philosophy.”, In the New 
Testament also the regular word for 
Jesus’ preaching in the synagogues is 
“teach” (Matt. 4:23 and often). Through 
the synagogues the scribes succeeded in 
turning the Jewish nation into one vast 
school. In process of time they brought 
their system of instruction to such a state 
of perfection that, as Josephus says, Cont, 
Ap., 2:16, “the knowledge and the practice 
of the law became the life-work of every 
Israelite.” 

For the purposes of instruction in the 
synagogues it became necessary to gather 
the sacred writings that had come down 
from pre-Exilic Israel into collections that 
received the official approval of the reli- 
gious authorities. The various histories 
and law codes of the Pentateuch that had 
hitherto circulated separately were now 
combined in their present form, and under 
the name of “the Law” these became the 
first division of the Jewish Canon. This 
occurred in the Persian period soon after 
the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. 

The circumstances that led to the for- 
mation and adoption of the second division 
of the Hebrew Canon, “the Prophets,” are 
unknown to us; but it is certain that by 
250 B. C., this Canon was complete, since 
it is known to the author of Ecclesiasticus. 
It contained two main divisions, “the 
Former Prophets,” or Historical Books 
from Joshua to Kings; and “the Latter 
Prophets,” beginning with the largest 
book, Jeremiah, followed by Ezekiel, and 
Isaiah, then the Minor Prophets in the 
order of their size, commencing with 
Hosea. This original order, as witnessed 
by the Talmud and early Jewish writers, 
was subsequently changed under the in- 
fluence of chronological considerations 80 
as to put Isaiah first in the Canon of the 
Latter Prophets. Thus arose the second 
main division of the Hebrew Bible. 

The third collection of the Canon, called 
“the Writings,” which contained all the 
remaining books, grew up gradually dur- 
ing the Greek period, and was not com- 
plete until shortly before the birth of 
Christ. In Hebrew Bibles the books are 
still arranged in these three original 
groups. In our English version the order 
of the books has unfortunately been 
changed to correspond with the Latin Vul- 

ate. 


& 
III. The Ancient Versions of the Old 





| 7h 


tian era. 


Bible, Significance of the 


Testament were made to Facilitate Reli- 
gious Education. As early as the second 
eentury B. C., Hebrew was no longer 
understood by the common people in 
_ Palestine, and Aramaic versions became 
necessary. At first it was forbidden to 
write them, and the translators in the 
synagogues depended upon oral tradition. 
_ Subsequently this prohibition was ignored 
and the argums were committed to writ- 


8. 

The Greek version was made for the in- 
struction of Greek-speaking Jews and 
proselytes in Egypt. The Pentateuch was 
probably translated during the reign of 
Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B. C.), 
and the other books followed at various 
times down to the beginning of the Chris- 
This Greek Old Testament was 
_ the one that was commonly used by the 
Apostles and the early Christian Church, 
and it has great value not only for the 
understanding of the Hebrew Old Testa- 
ment, but also for the understanding of 


_ the Greek New Testament. 


IV. The New Testament Originated for 
Use in Religious Education. Jesus of 
Nazareth revived and ennobled the teach- 
ing of the ancient prophets that God was 
supreme righteousness and that he re- 
quired righteousness of men. He taught 
_ that God was a Father who loved mankind 
with a perfect love, that all men were 
brothers, that love to God and love to man 
was the sum total of religion and that he 
had come to save men from sin and to 
give them eternal life. His favorite title 
was “Master,” that is, “Teacher.” He 
spent his life in teaching the multitude 
and in training his “disciples,” that is, his 
“scholars,” to be teachers of others. He 
died to attest his love and the love of God 
to the world. 

After his resurrection and reappearance 
to his friends in 30 A. D. they hailed him 
as the Messiah, or Christ, and preached his 
Gospel throughout the lands bordering on 
the Mediterranean. The apostolic Church 
_was organized on an educational basis. As 
Paul says in Ephesians 4:11, “He gave 
some to be apostles; and some prophets, 
and some evangelists, and some, pastors, 
and teachers, for the perfecting of the 
Saints, unto the work of ministering, unto 
the building up of the body of Christ: till 
we all attain unto the unity of the faith 
and of the knowledge of the Son of God, 


117 


Bible, Significance of the 


unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure 
of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” 
In primitive Christianity education was 
not regarded as one of the functions of the 
Church alongside of evangelization and 
preaching, but education was its supreme 
work, and evangelization and preaching 
were but two of its phases. 

For thirty or more years the disciples 
found no need to write what they knew of 
the words and the deeds of Jesus. Paul, 
however, the first missionary to the Gen- 
tiles, wrote a series of letters to the 
churches that he had planted to instruct 
them more fully in the teachings of the 
Gospel and to answer certain practical 
questions of conduct and of administra- 
tion. These in the order of their probable 
origin were 1 Thessalonians (51 A. D.), 
2 Thessalonians (54-?), 1 and 2 Corin- 
thians (55-56), Galatians (56), Romans 
(58), Ephesians and Colossians (58), 
Philemon (62), Philippians (64). 

The two letters to the Thessalonians 
deal mainly with questions concerning the 
second coming of Christ. The letters 
to the Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans 
are devoted chiefly to the establishment of 
Paul’s claim to be a true apostle of Jesus 
against the charges of the Jew and the 
Judaizing Christians, and to prevent the 
churches from returning to Judaism. 
Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians 
were called forth by the danger that the 
Greek converts would be led away by the 
heathen mystery-religions and incipient 
Gnosticism. Paul holds up Christ as the 
one in whom “dwelleth all the fullness of 
the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9), and 
teaches that the gospel is the supreme 
mystery and the final philosophy. Phile- 
mon is a personal letter begging Philemon 
to receive back as a brother a runaway 
slave, Onesimus, who has embraced Chris- 
tianity. If Paul was acquitted at Rome, 
whither he was sent to be tried, he may 
have written 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus 
after his release; but it is uncertain 
whether these really come from his hand. 
They deal with practical problems of the 
training of the ministry and the govern- 
ment of the churches, 

About 60 A. D., Matthew, one of the 
disciples of Jesus, wrote a collection of his 
sayings in the Aramaic language. This 
has not come down to us except in quota- 
tions in the later Gospels. From these 


Bible, Significance of the 


quotations it appears that these words of 
Jesus were intended for the instruction 
of Jewish converts in the churches of 
Palestine. After fPaul’s martyrdom 
(about 67 A. D.) Mark, the companion of 
Peter and Paul, wrote the Gospel of Mark. 
It contains a summary of the oral teach- 
ing of Peter in regard to the life and the 
sayings of his Master. It was designed 
for Gentile readers, probably at Rome, 
and aimed to show that Jesus was the 
strong Son of God, the Saviour for which 
the Gentile world had been waiting. Be- 
tween 70 and 75 A. D., the Greek. Gospel 
of Matthew was composed on the basis of 
Mark and Matthew’s Aramaic work. It 
was intended for Jewish readers, and 
sought to prove that Jesus was the Messiah 
of Old Testament hope. Luke wrote his 
Gospel 71-75 A. D., using the same sources 
as Matthew and some new sources. He 
was a Greek and wrote for Greek readers. 
His aim was to present Jesus as the uni- 
versal Saviour, destined to bring beneath 
his rule all the races of mankind. 

James and 1 Peter seem to have been 
written 70-80 A. D. Their aim was to 
instruct in the Christian virtues, and to 
inculcate patience and steadfastness under 
persecution. Between 80 and 90 A. D., 
Acts was written by Luke to show the con- 
tinued activity of Christ on earth in the 
spread of his Church. Hebrews was 
written in the same period to show the 
superiority of the Gospel to Judaism and 
to prevent Jewish converts from returning 
to their old faith. Revelation also was 
written to encourage Christians in the 
persecutions of the Roman emperors by 
- the vision of a brighter future. 

The Gospel and Epistles of John were 
written about 100 A. D., if they are the 
work of the Apostle John, which is 
doubted by many. They present Jesus in 
his eternal relation to the Father, and ex- 
alt love as the central principle in God, in 
the incarnation of the eternal Son, and in 
the Christian life. 2 Peter and Jude are 
still later, and are not the work of the 
apostles whose names they bear. These 
writings were gathered into a Canon, or 
rule of life, by the early Church and, to- 
gether with the Old Testament, they con- 
stitute the Bible of Christians of every 
denomination. 

V. The Christian Versions were made to 
Use in Religious Instruction. The Chris- 


118 


Bible, Significance of the | 


tian Church has planted schools wherever 
it has been founded. Its uniform expe-_ 
rience has been that these are practically | 
its only means of winning converts on the 
mission field. For teaching in these 
schools and for reading in the churches 
it has been found necessary to translate 
the Scriptures of the Old and the New 
Testament into the languages of the con- 
verted peoples. The first translation of 
both Testaments was the Peshitto, or 
Syriac version, that was made in the 
second century A. D., for the churches of 
Western Asia. In the same century the 
Vetus Itala, or Old Latin version, was 
made for the use of the churches in North 
Africa. This was followed in the fourth 
century by the Vulgate, or Latin version 
of Jerome, which has become the canonical 
Bible of the Roman Catholic Church down 
to the present time. These old versions, 
including the Targums and Septuagint, 
or Greek version of the Old Testament, are 
of the greatest value in textual criticism, 
or the reconstruction of the origmal read- 
ings of the books of the Old and the New 
Testament. These versions were made 
long before the oldest existing manuscripts 
were copied, so that when they are trans- 
lated back into Hebrew or Greek, they 
often present better readings than are pre- 
served in the current Hebrew and Greek 
texts. They are also of great value as 
commentaries, since they furnish the an- 
cient interpretation of obscure words and 
phrases in the original Scriptures. | 
The varied ways in which they inter- 
pret and paraphrase the original are ex- 
ceedingly useful in helping one to gain 
an exact idea of its meaning. So im- 
portant are these ancient versions for the 
exegete and the translator that the print- 
ing of them in polyglots, or parallel 
column editions, was one of the first efforts 
of the newly discovered art of printing. 
The Complutensian Polyglot, published 
under the patronage of Cardinal Ximenes, 
at Alcala (Complutum) in Spain, 1514 
1517, gives the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. 
This exerted a powerful influence upon 
the scholarship of the Reformation period. 
The Antwerp Polyglot (1569) and the 
Paris Polyglot (1645) gave also the He- 
brew, Greek, and Latin, and added the 
Targums. The London Polyglot (1657) 
added the Syriac, Ethiopic, and Arabic 
versions, and provided all the texts with 


Bible, Significance of the 


accurate Latin translations. This work in 
ten large folio volumes is a prodigy of 
learning, and makes some of the ancient 
yersions accessible that are found in no 
other place. Convenient modern poly- 
glots are published by Messrs. Bagster and 
Oo., London. For those who are familiar 
with the ancient languages these are most 
suggestive aids to Bible study. 

The modern versions of the Bible have 
had the same educational function as the 
ancient versions; namely, to make the 
Bible accessible for instruction in the 
church and the school. In the twelfth 
century a number of partial versions of 
the Latin Vulgate into the existing 
dialects of Europe were undertaken in 
France, Holland, Germany, Italy, and 
Spain, that were the precursors of the 
Protestant Reformation. John Wycliffe, 
about 1380, made the first complete trans- 
lation of the Vulgate into English. This 
was long before the invention of printing, 
and copies had to be made entirely by 
hand. About 170 manuscripts of this 
version have come down to the present 
generation. ‘This was the fountainhead of 
the English Reformation and of the King 
James Version of the Bible. 

The revival of learning in the sixteenth 
century first made possible the translation 
of the Scriptures out of the original 
tongues. Luther’s translation (1522) 
was made from the Hebrew and the Greek, 
but was strongly influenced by the exeget- 
leal tradition of the Vulgate. (See 
Luther, Martin.) The same was true of 
the successive English versions, Tyndale 
(1534), Coverdale (1535), Matthews 
(1537), the Great Bible (1539), the 
Geneva Bible (1557), the Bishops’ Bible 
(1568), and the King James’, or Author- 
ized Version (1611). These all are based 
upon the Hebrew and Greek, but they 
show a conservative adherence to the Vul- 
gate and to their English predecessors that 
vitiates their excellence as translations. 
The other Reformation versions into 
French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, etc., have 
lever attained the general use or the dig- 
nity of the German and of the English 
Bibles, © 

The advance of scholarship in the nine- 
teenth century brought the discovery of 
older manuscripts and better readings in 
both the Hebrew and the Greek Testa- 
Ments, Philology brought also a better 


119 


Bible, Significance of the 


understanding of the original languages 
of Scripture. These facts necessitated a 
revision of the King James Version, and 
this work was carried through to com- 
pletion by a British and American com- 
mittee in 1881-1885. The committee was 
greatly hampered by the rule that render- 
ings of the Authorized Version should not 
be changed unless they could be proved 
to be erroneous. The result, while a de- 
cided improvement upon the King James 
Version, still fell short of what might have 
been achieved in the present state of schol- 
arship. The New Testament revision is 
better than the Old Testament. Here a 
revised text was made the basis of the 
translation, and the translators worked 
more freely. In the Old Testament the 
rendering was made from an unrevised 
text, and the committee adhered more 
closely to the language of the King James 
Version and to the Vulgate tradition. As 
a result the Revised Version of the Old 
Testament in a number of places does not 
give a correct idea of the original. The 
American Standard Version (1901) has 
made a number of changes in the English 
Revision, but has not altogether remedied 
its more radical defects. There is need 
of a modern English version, made by a 
sufficiently large number of scholars to 
avoid individual idiosyncrasies, that shall 
disregard previous versions and give to 
the world the best possible translation 
into the language of the present time. An 
attempt in this direction for the Old 
Testament has been made in the work 
entitled Sacred Books of the Old Testa- 
ment, edited by Professor Haupt, and in 
the translations that accompany the com- 
mentaries in the International Critical 
Commentary. For the New Testament we 
have the Twentieth Century New Testa- 
ment (1900) and the superb version of 
Professor James Moffatt (1913). A 
modern critical version of the Old Testa- 
ment into German is Kautzsch’s Die Heal- 
ige Schrift des Alten Testaments, and of 
the New Testament, Weitzsicker’s Das 
Neue Testament wbersetzt, These most 
recent English versions, and all the ver- 
sions into other languages, are an enor- 
mous help to the student in understanding 
the Bible. Not only do they correct mis- 
translations and obscure translations, but 
they frequently give one an entirely new 
conception of the meaning of a passage by 


Bible Society, American 


expressing it in unfamiliar language. 
(See Bible, How the Teacher Should 
Know the; Bible in the S. 8.) 
L. B. Paton. 
References: 

Driver, S. R. Introduction to the 
Interature of the Old Testament. (New 
York, 1910.) 

Fowler, H. T. A History of the Lit- 
erature of Ancient Israel. (New York, 
1912.) 

Gregory, C. R. The Canon and Teat 
of the New Testament. (New York, 
1911.) 

Kautzsch, E. F. The Interature of 
the Old Testament. (New York, 1899.) 

Kenyon, F. G. Our Bible and the 
Ancient Manuscripts. Ed. 3. (Lon- 
don, 1905.) 

Kirkpatrick, A. F. The Divine In- 
brary of the Old Testament. (New 
York, 1891.) 

Moffatt, James. Introduction to the 
Interature of the New Testament. 
(New York, 1911.) 

Price, I. M. The Ancestry of our 
English Bible. (Philadelphia, 1907.) 

Westcott, B. F. History of the Eng- 
lish Bible, Hd. 8. (London, 1905.) 

Wildeboer, G. Origin of the Canon 
of the Old Testament; trans. by B. W. 
Bacon, (London, 1895.) 

Of a more popular character and 
adapted for use as textbooks in Sunday 
school are: 

Faris, J. T. Romance of the English 
Bible. (Boston, c1911.) 

McAfee, C. B. The Greatest English 
Classic. (New York, 1912.) 

Mutch, W. J. History of the Bible. 
Ed. 8. (Boston, c1901-12.) 

Smyth, J. P. The Bible in the Mak- 
ang. (New York, 1914.) 

Smyth, J. P. How We got our Bible. 
New ed. (London, 1901.) 

Winchester, B. S. The Youth of a 
People. (Boston, 1914.) 


BIBLE SOCIETY, AMERICAN.—The 
American Bible Society has from its be- 
ginning in 1816, been deeply interested 
in the Sunday schools of the United 
States and other countries. From the 
first year of its existence it has contrib- 
uted toward the supply of destitute Sun- 
day schools in every portion of the United 
States. In the year 1831, its Board of 


120 


B ul 
Bible Society, American 


Managers passed the following resolution, 
“That they view with great satisfaction 
the efforts of the present day to encour- 
age the study.of the Sacred Scriptures in 
the Sunday schools and that they shall 
always feel disposed so far as they are able 
to aid such Sunday schools of every reli 
gious denomination by furnishing at re- 
duced prices or gratuitously through 
respective Unions such Bibles and Testa- 
ments as may be needed.” 

Since the adoption of that resolution 
the Society has made grants of books to 
destitute Sunday schools to the number of 
more than one million volumes, and in 
addition to these unquestionably as many 
more have been gratuitously contributed 
to the same object by the Society’s aux- 
iliaries within their respective fields. 
When, however, notwithstanding this dis- 
tribution, it was found in 1890, that com- 
paratively few of the eight million chil- 
dren who were then estimated as attend- 
ing Sunday schools possessed a Bible 
which they could call their own, the Board 
resolved that so far as possible this want 
should be supplied, and to this end sought 
the codperation of all the Auxiliary Bible 
Societies and of pastors, Christian par- 
ents, Sunday-school superintendents, and 
teachers, and thus a great impetus was 
given to this special work. 

Life-members of the Society, who num- 
ber from fifteen to twenty thousand per- 
sons, have the privilege each year of receiv- 
ing for distribution one dollar’s worth of 
Scriptures to meet the needs in their im- 
mediate localities. Many thousands of 
Life-members have thus every year 
throughout the Society’s history been in 
the habit of ministering to needy Sunday 
schools in their vicinity. The American 
Sunday School Union, which makes a spe- 
cialty of founding Sunday schools in rural 
sections of the United States, has for 
many decades regularly received grants of 
Scriptures in aid of its work from the 
American Bible Society and the Sunday- 
school Boards or organizations of the 
churches, such as the Board of Publica- 
tion and Sunday School Work of the 
Presbyterian Church in the U. 8S. A., the 
Board of Sunday Schools of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, the Congrega- 
tional churches, and other similar organ- 
izations, have received grants of Scrip- 
tures to be distributed by them to Sun- 


, Bible Society, American 


_ day schools whose needs are so great that 
they are recipients of the bounty of these 
organizations. 

In addition to this the Board of Man- 
agers has throughout the entire history 
_ of the Society, made a special rate of one- 
half the cost on the less expensive books 
prepared especially for Sunday-school pur- 
_ poses to all Sunday schools that are un- 
able to pay the full cost of the books. It 
should not be forgotten that in manufac- 
turing and distributing tens of hundreds 
_of thousands of Scriptures at the mere 
cost of production, the American Bible 
Society has for nearly one hundred years 
been one of the greatest helpers in the 
_Sunday-school development of this and 
other lands. The policies that have been 
pursued in the United States have also 
been pursued by the Society in its great 
foreign agencies, where it is almost uni- 
_versally the policy to supply Scriptures for 
“missionary purposes at very much less 
than the cost of producing them; many 
thousands of dollars have thus been ex- 
pended in assisting in this way Sunday 
schools in all the foreign fields in which 
the Society’s labors have been extended. 
Thousands of Sunday schools in the Far 
East, and the Near East, in Latin Amer- 
ica and in Europe have received the assist- 
ance of the American Bible Society. 

It might be proper also to call atten- 
tion to the fact that the work of the col- 
-porteurs in interesting individuals and 
families and communities in the Scrip- 
tures has in innumerable instances led to 
the organization of Sunday schools, as 
well as to their supply. It is one of the 
commonest reports of the colporteur in 
‘Tegions in which Sunday schools exist 
that after he has visited a family the chil- 
dren, and sometimes the whole family, 
have become regular attendants upon the 
‘Sunday school in their neighborhood. 

The American Bible Society has had 
the Sunday-school population of the 
country in mind in the form in which it 
has issued its Scriptures. All the books 
of the Bible have been prepared in inex- 
pensive form in order that Sunday-school 
pupils may carry in their pockets the por- 
tion of Scripture which they were study- 
ig. The whole Bible is thus brought out 
In thirty-one volumes at two cents each, 
which can be purchased separately, or the 
whole can be purchased together in a 


re 


— a 

+ 

at : 
‘Fun, 
i. - 


121 


. purchase the coveted treasure. 


Bible Society, British 


box, or the New Testament volumes can 
be purchased in a separate box. From 
time to time particular groupings of the 
books of the Bible as they may be adapted 
to Sunday-school requirements are pre- 
pared; for instance, the first five books 
of the Bible in a separate box. According 
to its interpretation of its constitution 
the Society has been unable to prepare 
Bibles that have dictionary material ap- 
pended. 

The Society’s editions of the Bible are 
chiefly those of the King James Version. 
In order specially to meet the needs of 
Sunday schools, the American Bible So- 
ciety, in the year 1904, changed its con- 
stitutional provisions so that it was en- 
abled to publish the Revised Version, thus 
giving it to those who prefer it for their 
Sunday-school work. 

With the growing interest in the spir- 
itual training of the foreign-speaking 
peoples in the United States, the Ameri- 
can Bible Society has published or im- 
ported from its own agencies abroad or 
from foreign presses, particularly those 
of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 
Scriptures in more than eighty languages 
so it stands ready to meet the Sunday- 
school needs of the polyglot peoples of 
America, In other lands many other lan- 
guages must be added that are not used 
in Sunday-school work in America; con- 
sequently the grand total of languages in 
which the Society ministers to Sunday- 
schools would be very much larger. (See 
Bible Society, British and Foreign.) 

| W. I. Haven. 


BIBLE SOCIETY, BRITISH AND 
FOREIGN.—The intense desire of Mary 
Jones, a little Welsh girl, for the posses- 
sion of a Bible, led her to save her pennies 
for six years, and in 1800 she was able to 
This per- 
sonal incident coming to the knowledge of 
Rev. Thomas Charles (q. v.) of Bala 
brought about the formation of the Brit- 
ish and Foreign Bible Society in 1804. 
The course of the Society has been marked 
by several controversies relating to trans- 
lations, doctrinal questions, and what 
should be included in the volumes circu- 
lated by them. In 1826 it was finally de- 
cided that “those Books, or parts of Books, 
which are usually termed Apocryphal’” 
should be excluded. The Society’s Scot- 


Bible Society, British 


tish supporters gradually withdrew and 
independent societies were formed in 
Glasgow and Edinburgh. In 1861 these 
became the National Bible Society of Scot- 
land. Ireland has its independent so- 
ciety known as the Hibernian Bible So- 
ciety. 

The Society is governed by a large 
undenominational executive committee 
with a president, vice-presidents, and a 
treasurer, ex officio members of the com- 
mittee. ‘There are many local and branch 
societies in all parts of the world—in con- 
tinental Europe, Canada, Australia, India, 
and other Asiatic countries, and South 
Africa. 

The Society is supported by the annual 
income which is derived from donations, 
legacies, collections, etc., and by members 
of the Society who subscribe one guinea 
yearly, and governors who subscribe five 
guineas, 

The sole object of this Society is “to 
encourage the wider circulation of the 
Holy Scriptures without note or com- 
ment.” It will be at once obvious that 
this fundamental law imposes restrictions 
which prevent the Society from issuing 
Bibles with which are bound commen- 
taries, concordances, and similar helps to 
the study of the Bible. The prohibition 
of note and comment is not regarded as 
excluding alternative readings and ren- 
derings, references, chapter and paragraph 
headings, and maps. The Society does 
not issue volumes containing selections 
from the Scriptures, nor does it circulate 
fragments of the Bible less than a single 
book. 

The general requirements of a good edi- 
tion of the Bible for school use are a vol- 
ume of convenient size, with type neither 
too large nor too small so as not to strain 
the sight unduly, with thin yet opaque 
paper of the best quality, in a strong and 
durable binding. 

The English Scriptures are issued by 
the Bible Society in two versions only, 
the Authorized Version of 1611, and the 
Revised Version of 1881-85. As the Re- 
vised Version is the copyright in the 
United Kingdom of the Oxford and Cam- 
bridge Presses, the Society’s editions are 
strictly limited by those Presses both in 
letterpress and style of binding. 

There is an ample and sufficient range 
of editions of the Welsh Bible, or portions 


122 


x 
Vou 
~ 


Bible Stories for Children 





; 
thereof, to meet the needs of Welsh Sun- 
day schools. ‘The British and Foreign 
Bible Society has on its list of versions 
complete Bibles in 107 languages, New 
Testaments in 105, and portions in 228, 
in which translation, printing, or distri- 
bution of the Scriptures have been at any 
time promoted through its agency. The 
needs of Sunday schools world-wide are 
being met in these languages by means of 
editions, adapted usually to the linguistic, 
climatic, and other peculiar features of 
the localities in which they are spoken, 
In over thirty languages, the Scriptures 
are also issued in embossed type for the 
blind. 

When Bibles are required for distribu- 
tion as prizes, the Society makes a grant 
of twenty-five per cent off the catalogue 
prices in order to encourage the personal 
possession of the Scriptures by young 
people. With the same object, the same 
terms are allowed on Bibles purchased for 
resale to pupils on condition they have the 
benefit of the additional grant. Needy 
schools, requiring supplies of Bibles which 
are to remain school property may apply 
for help on schedules provided by the see- 
retaries, Bible House, 146 Queen Victoria 
street, London, E. C. If the need be 
established to the satisfaction of the com- 
mittee, grants of Scriptures are made on 
terms even more generous than those on 
Bibles for prizes or resale. These special 
grants involve the Society in an expend- 
iture of many thousands of pounds per 
annum at home. For Sunday schools on 
the mission field the selling prices are de- 
termined not so much by the cost price to 
the Society as by the ability of the people 
to pay for them. On this principle the 
Bible Society which is interdenomina- 
tional in character, is aiming to meet a 
world-wide need. The Bible in the World 
and The Bible Society Gleanings are 
periodicals issued by the Society. 

J. H. Ritson. 

Reference: 

Canton, W. History of the British 

and Foreign Bible Society. i 

1904.) 


BIBLE STORIES FOR CHILDREN.— 
The first requisite for the understanding 
of the Bible is familiarity with the Bible 
story. No student is fitted to investigate 
the questions of authorship and origin, 


Bible Stories for Children 


authenticity or doctrine, archeology or 
comparative religion, until he has at com- 
‘mand the great stream of Bible narration. 
In other words, a knowledge of the Bible 
stories lies at the foundation of all Bible 
knowledge. 

Among all the great works of literature 
there is no other volume so well adapted 
to story-telling as is the Bible. Primarily 
and preéminently it is a story-book. Its 
eontents are largely given in story form; 
and were doubtless handed down through 
‘many generations, by being told and re- 
told long before they were written. The 
Israelite nature in those ages was essen- 
tially a child-nature, with all the artless- 
ness, the receptiveness, the susceptibility 
‘to impressions, and the God-consciousness 
of childhood in every age. These traits of 
childhood enter deeply into the early liter- 
ature of the Hebrews and make that liter- 
ature an instrument for religious instruc- 
tion. President G. Stanley Hall says, 
“The Old Testament stories are the proper 
beginning of the religious education of 
the child.” The time in which, therefore, 
to imprint the great outstanding facts of 
Bible story upon the mind and to fix them 
in the memory is childhood. 

__ And the best method is that of telling 
the stories over and over to the children. 
For though there is in the nature of the 
child an insatiable hunger for stories, they 
do not always demand new stories; they 
love to hear again and again the old tales: 
and by rehearing they are learning them. 
The best school for this unconscious educa- 
tion in Bible knowledge is the home; and 
the teachers should be the parents: the 
mother telling the stories to her little ones 
‘ong before they can read them, the father 
teading the stories at family worship. No 
zreater mistake can be made than to rele- 
zate Bible instruction and religious edu- 
tation entirely to the Sunday school. No 
1alf-hour in the week will suffice for the 
yeaching of the Scriptures, and no teacher 
tan be found whose words will carry such 
Weight as will those of the parent. 

_ Concerning methods, a few suggestions 
night be given: (1) Let the teller of Bible 
stories, whether parent, teacher, or friend, 
Je thoroughly familiar with them. (2) 
Do not waste time in attempting to fore- 
itall difficulties, whether they arise from 
liserepancies in the narration; or from 
ts supernatural character; or from doc- 


123 


Bible Stories for Children 


trinal or ethical sources. Many things 
hard for adults to receive are accepted as 
a matter of course by children. Tell the 
story, without trying to reconcile it with 
the conclusions of modern criticism or 
modern ethics. (3) Use simple language, 
and avoid all technical or theological 
terms. (4) Avoid all attempts to make 
the Bible stories a frame work for theolog- 
ical instruction or even for ethical teach- 
ing, except as the teaching flows directly 
from the narration. The Bible story will 
in due time make its own application. 
The best collection of Bible stories is the 
Bible itself, and every parent and teacher 
should learn its stories by reading them 
directly from the volume. But as many 
parents are not familiar with the Bible 
many collections of Bible stories have been 
made. One of the earliest of these was 
The Peep of Day, which was in circulation 
sixty years ago, and gave to multitudes 
their earliest knowledge of Scripture. An- 
other book in use for more than a genera- 
tion and still widely circulated is The 
Story of the Bible, by Charles Foster. 
The Child’s Bible was a selection of Bible 
stories in the words of the Authorized Ver- 
sion. J. L. Hurlbut’s Story of the Bible 
contains nearly all the Bible stories told 
in simple, but not biblical language. The 
Garden of Eden and Other Stories, by 
George Hodges, is an admirable collection. 
(See Stories and Story-Telling.) 
J. L. Hurwsur. 
References: 
General: 

Partridge, E. N. Story Telling in 
School and Home. (New York, 1912.) 

St. John, E. P. Stories and Story 

Telling in Moral and Religious Educa- 
tion. (Boston, c1910.) 
Bible Storves: 

Cragin, L. E. Kindergarten Stories 
for the Sunday School and Home. 
(New York c1902-09.) 

Hodges, George. The Castle of Zion: 
Stories from the Old Testament. (New 
York, 1912.) 

Hodges, George. When the King 
Came: Stories from the Four Gospels. 
(New York, c1904.) 

Houghton, L. 8. Telling Bible 
Stories. (New York, 1905.) 

Mark, Thiselton. The Bible for Chil- 
dren: Bible Stories in Bible Language. 

Mark, Thiselton. The Young 


Bible Study 


People’s Bible: Old Testament Stories. 

Mutch, W. J. Graded Bible Storves. 
(Ripon, Wis., c1914.) 

Palmer, F. U. One Year of Sunday 
School Lessons for Young Children. 
(New York, 1910.) 

Palmer, F. U. Second Year of Sun- 
day School Lessons for Young Children. 
(New York, 1908.) 

Robertson, Mrs. E. (B.). The Heart 
of the Bible. (New York.) 


BIBLE STUDY.—SEkE Bisie, How THE 
TEACHER SHOULD KNOW THE; BIBLE IN 
THE S. S.; BrpLE READING; BIBLE ReEaD- 
ING AssocrIaATION, INTERNATIONAL; 
BIBLE, SIGNIFICANCE OF THE, IN RELI- 
cious EpucaTion; BisptE Stupy, PLACE 
OF, IN THE PREPARATION OF THE SS. 8. 
TEACHER; INDUCTIVE BIBLE STUDY; 
New TESTAMENT, VALUE OF THE, IN RE- 
Ligious EpucaTion, OLp ‘TESTAMENT, 
VALUE OF THE, IN RELIGIouS EDUCATION ; 
SYNTHETIC BIBLE StuDy; TEACHING IN 
THE BIBLE, METHODS OF. 


BIBLE STUDY IN COLLEGES AND 
SECONDARY SCHOOLS.—A century and 
a half ago Hebrew, New Testament Greek, 
Old Testament Laws and Institutions, the 
Psalms, the Prophets, and Christian Evi- 
dences were the chief studies in the Amer- 
ican college curriculum. Gradually, 
however, the Bible has been displaced, 
until a generation ago it had almost en- 
tirely disappeared from the college cur- 
riculum. Its disappearance was due to a 
variety of causes, chief among which 
were the inrush of new subjects and the 
natural reaction against the dogmatic, 
unscientific method of interpretation 
which, up to the end of the last century, 
largely concealed the real nature and the 
literary and religious values of the Bible. 
Within the last two decades the applica- 
tion of scientific and historical methods 
has transformed the study of the Bible 
and awakened a new interest in it. The 
Bible has again begun to take its place 
beside the other subjects studied in the 
American college and secondary school. 
Departments of Biblical literature have 
been established within recent years in 
many colleges. Hach year marks the 
founding of new chairs of Biblical liter- 
ature. 

Recent investigations of the status of 


124 






. ' 


Bible Study in Colleges 





y 


curriculum Bible study in our American: 
colleges indicate, however, that the Bible 
has not as yet been accorded an equal 
place with other curriculum subjects in 
the majority of the colleges and prepar- 
atory schools. In a preliminary report 
presented by Miss Ethel Cutler at the 
Cleveland convention of the Religious 
Education Asociation (1913), and based 
upon data gathered personally by the na- 
tional field and state secretaries of the 
Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A., the follow- 
ing significant facts were set forth. Out 
of the 214 colleges reported, representing 
39 states and a total of slightly over 
90,000 students, 157 offered Biblical in- 
struction. There are but 58 professors 
giving full time to the Biblical work, and 
most of them offer both graduate and 
undergraduate courses. Of the 230 in- 
structors giving part time to Biblical work, 
not more than 50 per cent have had spe- 
cial preparation for the Bible teaching. 
Out of the 214 institutions, only 45 have 
faculty members giving full time to this 
work. It is reasonable to assume that in 
the 300 or 400 colleges not reporting these 
percentages were far lower. Of the 90,000 
students in the colleges reporting, only 
13,000 are enrolled in curriculum Bible 
work, that is, about one in seven. Of 
this total, 8,656 are enrolled in the 91 
colleges where the Biblical work is re- 
quired, and 4,821 in the 109 colleges 
where it is elective. In the 91 colleges 
in which the work is required, a total of 
215 Biblical courses are offered, while in 
the 109 colleges in which it is elective, 
a total of 368 courses are offered. In 
the colleges where the Biblical work is re- 
quired the women enrolled stand to the 
men in the approximate ratio of 4 to 3, 
while in the colleges where the courses are 
elective, the ratio is about 22 to 26 in 
favor of the women. The total enroll- 
ment of 13,000 in the curriculum Bible 
courses is 2,000 less than the total in the 
voluntary courses under the direction of 
the Christian Associations. In many 
cases doubtless the same students are en- 
rolled in both, so these statistics indicate 
that at present between 60,000 and 70,000 
students, in the higher grade colleges of 
our country, are enrolled in no organized 
Bible study courses. | a 

In the secondary schools the Biblical in- 
struction is more chaotic than in the 


get 
- 


Bible Study in Colleges 


colleges. Even among the leading pre- 
paratory school leaders there is a wide dif- 


ference of opinion regarding the aims and 
-eontent of the curriculum Bible study. 
Investigations thus far conducted indi- 
eate that in the majority of the private 


girls’ schools the Biblical instruction is 


‘pitiably weak, although there are a few 


prominent exceptions. In certain boys’ 
preparatory schools like Andover, Taft, 


‘and Hill, a serious endeavor is being made 
‘to place it on an effective basis, and able 


instructors, specially trained in the Bible, 
are in charge of the work. A commission, 
including the~head masters of many of 


the leading eastern preparatory schools, 


has also been conducting investigations 
and has presented a report “concerning 


‘the use of the Scripture among school 


boys.” 


The courses that appear to give 
the best results and to codrdinate most 
naturally with the courses offered by the 
colleges are those in general Biblical in- 


troduction and in Biblical history, in 


which the biographical and dramatic ele- 


ments are especially emphasized. 
The possibility of introducing system- 
atic Biblical instruction into the high- 


school curriculum is now being considered 


‘im several states. In 1912 the High 
School Board of the State of North 
Dakota introduced into its curriculum a 
‘general introductory course in the Bible, 
‘aggregating 90 hours for which one half 
eredit is given. The work is conducted 
on the basis of the syllabus issued by the 
‘State High School Board. This work in- 
cludes a general introduction to the dif- 
‘Terent Biblical books, an outline of Bib- 
heal history, the study of selected nar- 
ratives from the Old and New Testament, 
and the memorizing of important pas- 
‘sages from both Testaments. The pri- 
‘Mary aim is to familiarize the pupils 
with that literature and that thought 
which have permeated and become the 
basis of our modern language, literature, 
and civilization. To insure thorough 
work the examinations are under the im- 
Mediate direction of the State High 
School Board. 

Recent years have marked substantial 
progress in the formulation and solution 
of the Bible study problems in our col- 
leges and secondary schools: (1) The 
need of codrdination between the Biblical 
work done in the; colleges and secondary 


125 


Bible Study in Colleges 


schools has been clearly recognized; (2) 
definite steps have been taken toward 
practical codperation and coordination 
between the curriculum and the volun- 
tary Bible study work done under the 
direction of the Christian Associations; 
and (3) definite college curriculum and 
voluntary courses have been outlined. 
The formulation of these courses has been 
under the direction of a joint committee 
representing the eastern and western 
Association of Biblical College Instruc- 
tors, and the committee on colleges and 
universities of the Teachers’ Training 
Commission of the Religious Education 
Association, the student Y. M. C. A. and 
Y. W. C. A., and the Sunday School 
Council. Obviously the detailed number 
of hours and the exact titles and order of 
courses will be worked out differently in 
different institutions. The following out- 
line indicates the general character and 
relations of the proposed college curricu- 
lum Bible courses: 


FRESHMEN AND SOPHOMORES 


1. Aim of Courses: 

Religious adjustment and point of view; 
systematic knowledge of the background 
and vital personalities and teachings of the 
Bible; a historical basis for individual re- 
ligious thinking and for later curriculum 
study; preparation for intelligent and ef- 
ficient religious leadership. 

2. Suggested Courses of Study: 

a. OLD TESTAMENT History (3 hours Ist 

semester or 2 hours throughout the year.) 

A brief but comprehensive survey of the 
chief personalities and events in Israel’s 
history from the days of Moses to the end 
of the Maccabean struggle, giving special 
attention to the work of the prophets, to 
the way in which they met the political, 
social, and religious problems of their day, 
and to the meaning and present significance 
of the universal principles which they pro- 
claimed. 

b. New TESTAMENT History (3 hours 2d 
semester or 2 hours throughout the 
year. ) 

The Jewish and Roman world in which 
Jesus lived; a constructive study of the 
personality and work of Jesus and of his 
fundamental teachings, and of their prac- 
tical interpretation in the activity and 
preaching of the apostles, especially Paul, 
and in the growth and extension of Chris- 
tianity during the first Christian century. 


JUNIORS AND SENIORS 


1, Aim of Courses: 

Detailed acquaintance with the literature 
and the social and religious teachings of the 
Bible. Their interpretation in modern 


Bible Study in Colleges. 


terms. Training for effective social and 
religious activity in the church, the Sunday 
school, Christian Associations, social and 
civic organizations. 

2. Suggested Courses of Study: 

a. THE BrsteE As LiTeRATURE (2 hours 
throughout year, or 3 hours one sem- 
ester. After Old and New Testament 
History.) 

The purpose is to gain an intimate ac- 
quaintance with the chief masterpieces of 
Biblical literature and to interpret them in 
the light of their historical setting and 
their literary form, and to lay the founda- 
tions for an intelligent study of modern 
literature. 

b. IsRAEL’s SocrAL INSTITUTIONS (2 or 3 
hours Ist semester. After Old and New 
Testament History.) 

Evolution of the Hebrew family, tribe, 
and state; social relations and the customs 
and laws regulating them; the religious and 
humanitarian principles underlying the Old 
Testament legislation and their modern ap- 
plication. 

c. SoctaL TEACHINGS OF JESUS AND THE 
PropHets (2 or 3 hours 2nd semester. 
After Old and New Testament History.) 

Historical Study, classification and inter- 
pretation of the social principles and teach- 
ings of Israel’s prophets and sages; com- 
parison with those of Jesus and of the 
primitive Christian Church; influence upon 
modern institutions and conditions. 

d. DEVELOPMENT OF RE Licious IDEAS (2 or 

3 hours throughout the year.) 

Origin, chief characteristics, distinctive 
teachings, historical development, and social 
values of the world’s great religions, espe- 
cially of Judaism and Christianity. 

e. HISTORY AND AGENCIES OF RELIGIOUS 
EDUCATION (2 or 3 hours Ist semester. 
After general course in Psychology.) 

Aims and methods of the Jewish, and 
Christian systems of religious education; 
the modern religious education movement: 
its history, aims, and agencies, with special 
emphasis on the equipment, organization and 
efficiency of the Sunday school. 

f. PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF RELIGIOUS 
EpucaTIoN (2 or 3 hours 2nd semester. 
After general course in Psychology.) 

Study of the significant psychological 
characteristics and the religious and moral 
interests and possibilities of the individual 
at each stage of his development; educa- 
tional values of the Biblical and extra- 
Biblical material and of the different types 
of expressional activity; the way to utilize 
them most effectively in the work of re- 
ligious education. 


The primary purpose in the courses in 
Old and New Testament is to furnish the 
student a working point of view, and to 
introduce him to the data that will en- 
able him to harmonize and synthesize the 
results of his scientific and religious think- 
ing. The study naturally centers about 


126 


Bible Study in Colleges 


the great prophetic personalities of the 
Old Testament and about Jesus and Paul 
in the New. Where the Biblical work is 
not thrown open to students before the 
sophomore or junior years (as in many 
eastern colleges) these two courses, if 
taught on the basis of a carefully worked- 
out syllabus, may be profitably compressed 
into two three-hour semester courses. 

In certain colleges, and especially in 
the junior colleges, it may be found neces- 
sary to offer a two-hour semester course 
in the freshman year as a general intro- 
duction to the Bible. The primary ob- 
ject of such a course is to establish the 
right points of view. Such general ques- 
tions as the inspiration and value of the 


Bible, the history of its different books 


and of its various versions are here con- 
sidered. This course corresponds to the 
general Biblical introduction offered ‘in 
the higher grade eastern preparatory 
schools. 

The advanced Biblical courses allow 
each student to place the emphasis accord- 
ing to his individual and ultimate aims. 
They enable him to follow either the lit- 
erary, the social, or the theological line of 
approach. 

Four converging currents of influence 
are bringing the Bible back into the cur- 
ricula of the American colleges and pre- 
paratory schools. The first is the recog- 
nition of its transcendent literary values 
and of the unique place which it occupies 
in the literature and thought of the Eng- 
lish-speaking people. The second is the 
re-discovery, in the light of modern his- 
torical and scientific research, of its pres- 
ent-day practical, ethical, and_ social 
values. Matthew Arnold’s prediction that 
“to the Bible men will return because they 
cannot do without it” is now being sig- 
nally fulfilled. The third is its perennial 
religious value to the individual in help- 
ing him to solve the practical problems of 
life. The fourth is its educational value. 

In its ultimate effects the last promises 
to transcend all others. Practical expe- 
rience and scientific investigation are 
demonstrating that no other material for 
religious education surpasses or quite 
equals that found in the Bible. The appli- 
cation of modern historical methods has 
greatly enhanced the educational value of 
the Bible. The vision of the Biblical 
field has also been so vastly broadened that 


ss 
rd 


i ¢ 
= 
i 


) Bible Study in Colleges 





| educators now generally realize that to 
gain a thorough, systematic, constructive 
knowledge of it requires the time, the 
careful organization, the tested methods, 
the close discipline, the hard application, 
_and the personal direction and inspiration 
of the college classroom and of the thor- 
oughly trained Biblical instructor. 
In restoring the Bible to its natural 
place in the college curriculum, the ac- 
‘tive cooperation of the national and local 
student Christian Associations and the 
‘interest of a majority of the faculties and 
governing boards of the American col- 
leges are now assumed. If these friendly 
forces are supplemented by the powerful 
influence of the Church, the Sunday 
school, and other organized agencies of 
religious education, provisions will soon 
‘be made so that an increasing body of 
students will after graduation enter into 
the work of the church and Sunday school, 
having had during their college course 
a part, if not all of the 30 semester hours 
recommended by the joint committee at 
the Cleveland convention of the Religious 
‘Education Association in (1913), namely, 
Hours 
ie Testament History.....cscccececes 3 
|New Testament History...........0.0. 3 
The Bible as Literature, or Israel’s 
Social Institutions, and the Social 
| Teachings of Jesus and the Prophets. 6 
‘Development of Religious Ideas...... 4 
|General PSyCchology.....sceeseceeccees 3 
History and Theory of Education..... 3 
History and Agencies of Religious Edu- 
cation 
' Electives “in Philosophy, Ethics, and 
meme Social Sciences........seceecess 


eeceevese ee eee essere eeeee eevee 





Total semester hours............ 30 


| When and only when the lay and pro- 
fessional forces of the Sunday school are 
augmented by a rapidly increasing num- 
‘ber of college-trained leaders, will the 
solution of the baffling problem of teacher 
training be near at hand. Most of our 
American eolleges were founded pro 
‘Christo et ecclesia. The church and Sun- 
day school, in performing their important 
‘educational functions for the nation, have, 
‘therefore, every right to expect and de- 
mand the effective codperation of the col- 
leges and secondary schools. There is 
also every reason to believe that in propor- 
tion as these demands are clearly formu- 
lated and insistently presented they will 
be met. C. F, Kent, 


127 


Bible Study and the Teacher 


References: 

Religious Education, VII, 42-57; 
Report of Eastern Meeting of the As- 
sociation of College Teachers of the 
Bible held in December, 1911; VII, 
101-110: Teachers’ Training in Col- 
leges and Universities; VII, 707-713: 
The Bible in Colleges; Report of the 
New York Conference regarding the 
Aims of Biblical Instruction in Pre- 
paratory Schools and Colleges. Report 
of the Commission appointed at the 
Conference concerning Use of the 
Scriptures among School Boys, May, 
1912 (Secretary of Bible Study Com- 
mission, 124 EH. 28th St., New York 
City). . 


BIBLE STUDY, INDUCTIVE.—Szrxz 
INDUCTIVE BIBLE STUDY. 


BIBLE STUDY, PLACE OF, IN THE 
PREPARATION OF THE SUNDAY- 
SCHOOL TEACHER.—The place of Bible 
study in the training of the teacher of 
the Bible is a most important one. First, 
because the Bible is the book to be taught, 
and it is essential to all teaching that one 
shall know the subject he undertakes to 
teach. One does not question the im- 
portance of knowing grammar on the part 
of the teacher of grammar, or of knowing 
Latin on the part of the teacher of Latin. 
For the same reason the person who un- 
dertakes to teach the Bible should know 
the Bible. Although one is not required 
to teach the whole Bible in the very first 
lesson, the teacher should study each part 
in the light of the whole. One of the 
blunders made by beginners in Bible 
study, as well as by many teachers of the 
Bible, is to study and to teach a_par- 
ticular passage irrespective of the mes- 
sage of the book as a whole. The message 
of the Bible is supremely a message about 
God, what man is to believe concerning 
him, and what man’s obligations and 
privileges are in respect to God. A knowl- 
edge of facts gives the teacher prestige 
before the students. He is better able to 
control his class the more he knows of the 
subject which he is teaching. It should 
be remembered that the teacher is not 
before the class primarily to display his 
knowledge. It is sometimes the part of 
a wise teacher to conceal his knowledge. 
Particularly is this important when the 


Bible Study and the Teacher 


knowledge which one has is knowledge of 
opinions instead of a knowledge of the 
Book itself; but to know one’s subject 
thoroughly means incidental revelation 
of that fact when some question unex- 
pectedly arises. It is a great thing so to 
teach that the pupils will have the impres- 
sion that their teacher is thoroughly ac- 
quainted with his subject. 

Recently there has been some discus- 
sion in regard to the teaching of other 
subjects than the Bible in the Sunday 
school. The writer maintains that there 
is not enough time now to teach the Bible 
itself in the Sunday school, and he would 
be opposed to the introduction of outside 
matter chiefly on that ground. With so 
few minutes for the teaching of the Book 
of books, it seems a mistake not to avail 
ourselves of all that the opportunity 
affords. In the true teaching of the Bible, 
however, there is room for and often a 
demand for the introduction; by way of 
emphasis and illustration, of that which is 
outside of the Bible. Provided the aim is 
to make known what the Scriptures teach 
concerning God, and man’s relation to 
God, the teacher may be trusted to draw 
from every field of information and 
thereby illumine the open page of the 
Bible. (See Extra-Biblical Studies.) 

Many Sunday-school teachers make the 
mistake in their study of the Bible of 
studying it too exclusively by one method. 
One should check himself against error by 
studying the Bible in at least two or three 
different ways. For example, one ought 
to read an entire book of the Bible at 
least once a week at a single sitting. This 
can easily be done if one so determines. 
There are forty-two of the sixty-six books 
of the Bible each of which is short enough 
to be read in less than half an hour. Such 
reading may well be aloud and uninter- 
rupted. One should allow the mind to 
be open. Let it be charged to observe, to 
be active, and then note the impressions 
resulting from the reading. This kind 
of rapid reading of books as a whole 
should not aim at a knowledge of all de- 
tails. It should seek general acquaint- 
ance, and notation should be made of out- 
standing impressions. These should be 
written down and filed for future refer- 
ence. When after several years the reader 
comes back for another reading of the 
same book, he should, after such second 


128 


> 


Bible Study and the Teacher 


reading with notation of results, compare 
the same with the former reading. Eve 

Sunday-school teacher ought to read in 
this way. He will be astonished at the 
side lights that come and at the number 
of illustrations thus furnished for special 
lessons to be taught. (See Bible Read- 
ing; Inductive Bible Study; Synthetic 
Bible Study.) Oftentimes the best kind 
of preparation for teaching is that which 
comes incidentally from general reading. 

In addition to this reading of a book 
at a single sitting once a week, one ought 
to have on hand for special thorough 
study some particular book of the Bible. 
Certain great outstanding books should 
be taken up first of all, such as one of the 
four Gospels, the Book of the Acts, the 
Epistle to the Romans, the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, or one of the prophets, such as 
Isaiah or Jeremiah. Of course a series of 
short books might be suggested. A teacher 
ought to stay long enough at one book 
to get acquainted with the situation. If 
he will work systematically according. to 
a plan he will be surprised at the results. 
Every reader of the Bible should have 
on hand all the while some particular 
book of the Bible for mastery. As one 
puts hard study upon other books in order 
to know them, he should take a particular 
portion of the Bible and know it thor- 
oughly. One book thoroughly mastered 
throws much light on every other portion 
of the Bible. 

The student may also have a topic on 
hand for study, if he has such inclination. 
Often, however, topical Bible study is fol- 
lowed too exclusively. It should come 
after book study, and a general knowledge 
of the Scriptures gained by rapid read- 
ing. There is great danger with a cer- 
tain type of persons lest they take up a 
favorite subject and study it so exclusively 
that they become one-sided. This should 
be guarded against. Some teachers lose 
their influence with those whom they seek 
to teach largely because of the dispropor- 
tionate emphasis upon this or that doc- 
trine. Nothing will enable one so effec- 
tively to keep proper balance as rapid and 
large reading of the Holy Scriptures. 

Again, the proper study of the Bible 
itself acquaints the student with the best 
methods. The Bible is the greatest book 
on method in existence. Some are afraid 
of the word “pedagogy” and of that other 


ob 


b 


| Bible Study and the Teacher 


' one so often associated with it, “psychol- 
ogy.” These words simply stand for a 
knowledge of:the principles of teaching 
and a knowledge of human nature. Psy- 
chology is everywhere in evidence in the 
Bible, because the Bible deals with human 
nature. (See Psychology and Pedagogy, 
Contributions of, to the Work of the 8. S.) 
It is the book about God, but it is also 
the book about man. Not only is: man as 
an individual revealed in a remarkable 
manner in the Scriptures, but man in all 
possible social relationships also; so that 
some acquaintance with the science of 
sociology in its fundamentals is involved 
in a knowledge of the Scriptures. (See 

Teaching in the Bible, Methods of.) 
It should be remembered that all the 


prophets and apostles and our Lord him- . 


self were preéminently teachers. One of 
_the greatest blessings that has come to the 
writer from the study of the Scriptures 
in the matter of method, is liberty in 
method, the encouragement from the 
Bible itself to avoid routine. One of the 
secrets of success in teaching, as in preach- 
ing, is the presence of the new and unus- 
ual. Take Jeremiah, for instance. This 
book is one of the finest in the Bible from 
‘which to gather material to teach chil- 
dren. It is full of illustrative stories 
which children would be delighted to 
hear, and the man himself was original, 
and yet at the same time profound and 
well balanced. 
The story of the woman at the well, 
found in the fourth chapter of the Gospel 
of John is an excellent illustration of 
teaching method. A teacher thus reported 
the point in method which she learned 
from, this story: “Jesus knew when to 
quit on any particular point. He did not 
Tub it in” He had a way of leading up 
to the lesson he wished to teach and of 
allowing the pupil to make his own appli- 
cation.” One of the most important 
things for teachers to learn is this art of 
permitting the pupil to apply the truth 
for himself. The tactfulness of the teach- 
ers in the Bible is one of their outstand- 
ing characteristics. 

_ Attention may also be called to the 
comprehensiveness and variety of the 
Tevelation of human nature to be found 
In the Scriptures. Palestine is truly a 
Microcosm, a little world, as it appears 
In its setting in the Scriptures. It grows 


129 


Bible Study and the Teacher 


all kinds of flowers, all kinds of trees and 
all kinds of experiences. It has perpet- 
ual snow, and it has torrid heat. Out of 
that wonderful environment came the 
Bible, and human nature is the same all 
over the world as it is revealed in the 
Holy Scriptures. 

Not only is there a _ psychological 
problem which the teacher has to meet; 
the religious problem is also very closely 
connected with this. There is normal 
psychology in the Scriptures, because 
there it is revealed with the inclusion of 
the spiritual element. If one is to under- 
stand human nature thoroughly, and to 
deal wisely with it he must study the psy- 
chology of man as a religious being. In 
the Bible is to be found this combination. 
The more one knows concerning the life 
of the Bible, the less likely is he to make 
mistakes in the treatment of his pupils. 
Any one who is thoroughly acquainted 
with the Scriptures and has had a proper 
share of Christian experience himself, will 
assume the fact that there is in the mem- 
bers of the class that which will respond 
to the truth. as it is in God’s Word. 

The Bible itself should be studied be- 
cause of the inspiration which comes to 
those who know the Bible. Every one 
may well covet the experience of teaching 
a few verses in such a book as the Gospel 
of Matthew, or the Epistle to the Romans 
in the light of, and by the inspiration of, 
a vision of the book as a whole. With the 
whole book in mind, and understanding 
the aim of the writer in his entire trea- 
tise, and observing how in each part there 
is a contribution to the accomplishment 
of the general purpose, the teacher is 
greatly aided. Inspiration comes because 
of right views as a whole, and because of 
the proper correlation of the parts to the 
whole. Teachers themselves need inspira- 
tion in order that they may inspire their 
pupils. A saturation with the thought 
and spirit of the Scriptures, such as comes 
with a mastery of certain books of the 
Bible in the light of the whole, is a neces- 
sary condition for the highest kind of 
Bible teaching. (See Bible, How the 
Teacher Should Know the; Bible in the 
S. S.; Bible, Significance of the, in Reli- 
gious Education.) 

The character which is formed from a 
true knowledge of the Scriptures is essen- 
tial to true teaching of the Bible. One 


Bible Study, Synthetic 


cannot study the Bible with an open heart 
and a determination to embody the truth 
as God is willing to reveal it to him, with- 
out great development in his own life and 
character. This is the great objective in 
teaching—character and personality. The 
pupils learn from what they see in the 
teacher rather than from what he teaches. 
It is futile to advise pupils to do what we 
say, and not to follow our example. (See 
Teacher, S. S., Personality and Character 
of the.) The Bible study of the future 
is to be experimental and ethical. If one 
is to teach men that they should be gentle 
and kind, the teacher himself must be 
gentle and kind. He must manifest those 
characteristics of Jesus Christ which are 
so conspicuous in his life, if he is to rep- 
resent him correctly. There is nothing 
that will put God’s life into the teacher 
more rapidly, more fully, more beauti- 
fully, than proper contact with the Holy 
Scriptures. 
W. W. WHITE. 


BIBLE STUDY, SYNTHETIC.—Serr 
SYNTHETIC BIBLE STUDY. 


BIBLE STUDY UNION LESSONS.— 
This name is now applied to two distinct 
series of lessons, known as the Six Year 
Series, and the Completely Graded Series. 
The Six Year Series was originated by 
Rev. Erastus Blakeslee (q. v.) in 1892. 
From that time until his death in 1908, 
the lessons were edited and published by 
Mr. Blakeslee himself, and attained wide 
popularity as the “Blakeslee Lessons.” In 
1908, a new series of lessons was under- 
taken by Mr. Blakeslee’s heirs, with the 
editorial assistance of Prof. Charles F. 
Kent, and Prof. George A. Coe. This was 
called the Completely Graded Series. In 
1911, both series were purchased by the 
present publishers, Charles Scribner’s 
Sons, New York. 

Mr. Blakeslee’s chief aim in preparing 
the Six Year Series, was to promote gen- 
uine Bible study in Sunday schools. One 
of the criticisms of the International Sys- 
tem, at that time, was the disconnected 
character of the work. During one quarter 
of the year, the pupil might be studying 
Paul; the next quarter he might find him- 
self transported back to the middle of the 
Old Testament. This inevitably left in 
the minds of most pupils a confused and 


130 


bs 


Bible Study Union Lessons 


hazy conception of the order of events in 
Bible history. Moreover, there was little 
provision for actual Bible study. These 
defects of the Uniform Lessons were 
largely avoided in the Six Year Series. 
This series provides for a systematic, con- 
nected study of the main facts of Biblical 
history and doctrine, from Genesis to 
Revelation. This ground is covered twice, 
once from the biographical and once from 
the historical point of view. In each case, 
there is one year’s work on the Old Testa- 
ment, one year on the Life of Christ, and 
one on the Acts and the Epistles. To a 
limited extent, the lessons are graded as 
regards subject matter. While in the 
course of the year the entire Sunday school 
studies the same general part of the Bible, 
yet the simpler and more concrete material 
is selected for the lower grades. The 
series is thus a valuable steppingstone by 
which cautious and conservative schools 
may pass to graded lessons. 

The Completely Graded Series was 
planned with one controlling aim in view, 
namely: “To teach the child at each age, 
what it means to be a Christian at that 
age.” In other words, the lessons are 
intended not merely to teach Biblical his- 
tory, but primarily and fundamentally to 
build Christian character. Precisely what 
this means, to the editors and publishers 
of the series, is indicated by the follow- 
ing principles which underlie the curricu- 
lum as a whole. 

1. It is believed that the child, as Bush- 
nell declared, “should grow up a Chris- 
tian and never think of himself as being 
anything else.” In other words, the pupil 
should be recognized from the very be- 
ginning as a child of the Heavenly Father, 
and therefore able to appreciate Christian 
ideals, and with the help of the divine 
Spirit, able to realize these ideals, in in- 
creasing measure in his own life. 

2. The child can understand these 
ideals, however, only when he sees them 
concretely exemplified on the level of his 
own limited experience. Hence the neces- 
sity for a graded curriculum. 

3. The Bible is one of the supreme 
agencies for the building of Christian 
character and must, therefore, be the 
chief source of lesson material. : 

4, In any grade, however, lesson mate- 
rial from extra-Biblical sources should be 
utilized, if such material is best adapted 


Bible Study Union Lessons 


to help the pupils to meet in the Christian 
spirit the peculiar problems, temptations, 
and opportunities of that age. 

5. Every lesson should not merely pro- 
vide lesson material for the pupil but 
should also suggest to the teacher definite 
ways in which he may lead the pupil to 
express in action the moral impression 
which the lesson has produced upon him. 

The following courses, worked out in 
accordance with the above principles, are 
provided in the Completely Graded Series. 
Primary. 


Age 6. God the Loving Father and 
His Children 
Age 7%. God’s Loyal Children 


Age 8. Jesus’ Way of Love and Serv- 
ice 

The lesson material in these Primary 
courses consists of stories, which are fur- 
nished in the teacher’s Helper, to be told 
orally to the children. They are selected 
from the Bible and from Christian sources 
outside the Bible. ‘The pupils receive 
eards with outlined pictures illustrating 
the stories, one for each Sunday in the 
year. The outlines are to be colored, by 
the pupils themselves. 
inches by 8 inches, larger than the cards 
usually furnished for Primary classes. 
Junior, 


Age 9. Early Heroes and Heroines ~ 
Age 10. Kings and Prophets 

Age 11. The Life and Words of Jesus 
Age 12. Christian Apostles and Mis- 


sionaries (9 mos. 
Witnesses for Christ (3 
mos. ) 

These Junior courses, with the excep- 
tion of the fifth and last, Witnesses for 
Christ constitute a single course, called 
The Junior Bible. The first year’s work 
contains Old Testament stories from 
Abraham to Solomon. The second year 
completes the study of the Old Testament. 
The third year is based on story material 
drawn from the life of Jesus and chiefly 
found in the Synoptic Gospels. The 
fourth year is based on the Book of Acts, 
supplemented by extracts from the 
simpler parts of the Epistles. The 
method of the Junior Bible is as follows: 
Hach Sunday the pupil receives a folder 
containing the actual text of a Bible story 
im a simplified translation. Late dupli- 
_ cations and interpolations are also omitted 
_ from the story, in accordance with a crit- 


131 


The cards are 6- 


Bible Study Union Lessons 


ical analysis of the Biblical narratives. 
Tissot or other pictures are supplied with 
each lesson, and are to be mounted by the 
pupil. A cover for binding is also sup- 
plied, that at the end of the course,. the 
pupil has an illustrated Junior Bible, of 
selected stories, chronologically arranged. 

The fifth course, Witnesses for Christ, 
is a supplementary three months course in 
quarterly form. It presents the most con- 
crete and vital life-experiences of the early 
Christians between the Apostolic Age, and 
the conversion of Northern Europe. It 
shows’ that it often meant loss of money 
and friends and even of life itself, to be a 
Christian in those early centuries. 
Intermediate. 

Age 13. Heroes of Faith. This course 
contains brief sketches of about thirty-five 
heroic and grandly religious characters, 
both in Biblical and in later Christian 
history. The object is to kindle in the 
pupil, the same heroic spirit that animat- 
ed these men and women. 

Age 14. Christian Life and Conduct. 
This course is unique. It teaches Chris- 
tian ethics but contains no moralizing or 
“preaching.” On the contrary it stimu- 
lates the pupil to think for himself. Each 
lesson brings to the foreground vital, con- 
crete, human experiences from the history 
of Israel and the life of Jesus. From the 
manner in which the men of the Bible 
solved their moral and religious problems, 
light is thrown on the analogous problems 
of the boys and girls themselves. - 

Age 15. The Story of the Bible. This 
is an introduction to the Bible. It is a 
story of the lives of the men and women 
who wrote the Bible, showing how their 
hopes and struggles and religious expe- 
riences led them to write the various 
books. The object of the course is to in- 
terest the pupils in the Bible, as the out- 
growth of warm vital human experience, 
and to give the proper key to its correct 
interpretation. 

Age 16, The Life of Jesus. (9 months’ 
course.) This is an illustrated textbook 
on the life of Jesus. In addition to nu- 
merous illustrations throughout the text 
the work contains sixteen ful] page half- 
tone illustrations. The aim of this course 
is so to present the personality of Jesus: 

(1) That every pupil who has not al- 
ready awakened to a personal religious life 
shall make a definite decision for Christ, 


Bible Study Union Lessons 


(2) That every pupil who already 
counts himself a follower of Christ shall 
attain a deeper realization of the meaning 
of discipleship; and particularly that the 
child spirit of obedience shall grow into 
that of manly and womanly devotion to 
the Master of Life. 

Age 16. Young People’s Problems, as 
interpreted by Jesus. (3 months’ course.) 
This course is intended as a supplement 
to be used with the above course on the 
life of Jesus, and also in special confirma- 
tion and communion classes. It deals 


with such practical problems as the choice. 


of a vocation, self-control in the bodily 
life, the meaning of the Christian life, and 
of Church membership. 

Senior. 

Age 1%. Preparations,for Christianity. 
This course is a study of religious evolu- 
tion. It traces the development of the 
religion of Israel from its earliest begin- 
nings in Babylonia, Egypt, and Canaan, 
through the great epochs of the prophets, 
and culminating in Christianity. 

Age 18. Landmarks in Christian His- 
tory, measures the progress of the spirit 
of Christ in human society by certain 
landmarks in the history of Christianity. 

Age 19. The Conquering Christ. A 
study of the principal non-Christian reli- 
gions, and the methods, heroes, and 
achievements of modern missions. 

Age 20. The Modern Church. This 
course might almost be entitled the 
Young Church Worker’s Guide. It is 
intended to lead the pupil to study the ac- 
tivities of his own church and of sister 
churches, with a view to an intelligent 
familiarity with the most approved meth- 
ods. 

This four year Senior course, as a 
whole, is designed to help young people to 
develop into intelligent and loyal Chris- 
tians and efficient church workers. 

Adult Courses. | 

The Making of a Nation, by Professors 
Kent and Jenks. Studies in the early 
narratives of the Old Testament, from the 
Creation to the settlement in Canaan. 
The object of this course is to show the 
bearing of the narratives of the Old Testa- 
ment on modern social problems. 

The Historical Bible in six volumes 
by Prof. Charles F. Kent, This course 
is intended for those who desire to gain 
in the light of modern Biblical research 


132 


edt i* 


a 
Bible Teachers Training School 
and discovery, a thorough, connected 
knowledge of the important events, char- 
acters, and writings of the Bible, and 
their relations to present problems. It 
aims to lay historic foundations for a 
strong, practical faith, and to give future 
Sunday-school teachers the Biblical equip- 
ment required for effective work. | 
H. A. SHERMAN, 


BIBLE TEACHERS COLLEGE.—Srp 
Bist—E TEACHERS TRAINING ScHOOL 
(NEw York City.) 


BIBLE TEACHERS TRAINING 
SCHOOL (NEW YORK CITY).—The 
Training School was established by Dr. 
Wilbert W. White, its president, in 
Montclair, N. J., in January, 1901, as 
the Bible Teachers College. In 1902 it 
was removed to New York City and in- 
corporated under the laws of New York 
State by the Board of Regents of the 
University of New York. The present 
name was adopted because of the restric- 
tions of the New York law referring to 
the use of the word college. The Board 
of Trustees is required to be interde- 
nominational. 

The School is interdenominational in 
character, evangelical in doctrine, reverent 
in spirit, pedagogical in method, and prac- 
tical in aim. It seeks to train for any 
form of Christian work. The underlying 
principle is the study of the Bible in the 


mother-tongue, and the Bible is the or- 


ganizing center of its broad and compre- 
hensive curriculum. 

This Bible college (for such in fact it 
is) is divided into five schools: The School 
for Post-Graduates and Special Study; 
The School of Theology; The School of 
Religious Pedagogy; The School of Mis- 
sions; The School for Bible Teachers. 
The courses range in length from one to 
three years. 

There is a strong Extension Depart- 
ment in which members of the faculty 
conduct classes in the vicinity of New 
York and elsewhere. 

Every regular student is required to 
engage in practical Christian work— 
teaching, preaching, visitation, etc. 

Standing upon the evangelical faith of 
Christendom, the school avoids that de- 
nominational, vocational, social, and sex 
isolation which ‘frequently militates 


ey 


3 4 
oi 


“he 
Bible, Teaching in the 


against the broadest religious training. 
As a rule, from twenty-five to thirty de- 
nominations are represented in its class- 
rooms, and its students come from a score 
of countries and about a hundred insti- 


- tutions of higher learning. 


_ yery marked. 


The influence of the Bible Teachers 
Training School in the mission field is 
In the Far East it has 
been officially indorsed and honored as 


_ the model for two or more theological 


schools. 

The school has a faculty of ten mem- 
bers who give full time to the work, to- 
gether with a respresentative corps of lec- 


turers. 


The Bible Magazine, a periodical of 
general circulation, is the chief publica- 
tion. ‘The student body has a publica- 


tion of its own. 


The school occupies a nine story build- 
ing at Lexington avenue and 49th street, 


New York city. dinightieae 


BIBLE, TEACHING IN THE.—Sere 
TEACHING IN THE BIBLE, METHODS OF. 


BIBLE TRAINING INSTITUTH 
(GLASGOW).—The curriculum of this 
Institute, while designed primarily to give 
an all-round equipment for Christian 
workers in the home, colonial and foreign 


_ mission fields, includes in its scope the 
_ training of workers among the young. 


This it seeks to secure by (a) A general 


 eourse of study covering all the books of 


the Bible and the great doctrines of 
Scripture; (b) Instruction in the prepa- 
ration of outline addresses, object lessons, 


_ ete., and methods of conducting children’s 


meetings and Bible classes; (c) Musical 
instruction; and (d) Regular practice in 
conducting and addressing children’s 


_ services. Some graduates of the Institute 


are doing splendid work as children’s 
evangelists. ‘The course extends to two 
sessions of ten months each, and the fees, 


including board and tuition, are £25 per 


Session. The Institute is located at 64 


_ Bothwell street, Glasgow, Scotland, Rev. 
_D. M. M’Intyre, principal. Prospectuses 


may be obtained on application to the sec- 
Tetary. 
JAMES FULTON. 


BIBLE, USE OF THE, IN THE DE- 


_ VOTIONAL LIFE OF THE CHILD.—It 


. 


133 


Bible in the Child’s Life 


is a simple matter to teach the child to use 
the Bible as a story-book, or as a book of 
history. No other book in the world can 
compete with it, in the child’s mind, 
from either or both of these points of 
view. What tale, for example, so thrills 
a childish hearer as the account of the 
Creation; what biography so entrances 
him as the Life of Christ? It is easy 
so to interest the child in the Bible that 
it becomes his “favorite story-book,” 
or the book of history he “likes best.” 
In short, it is not difficult so to lead him 
that, as a secular book, he will use the 
Bible more frequently and with more de- 
light than any other. But he must also 
be shown that it is sacred; he must be 
taught to use it, not alone as a story- 
book, nor as a book of history, but as a 
devotional book—a guide-book, and that 
the only one, to make plain for him the 
way from earth to heaven. 

How is this to be done? It can best 
be done, perhaps, by teaching him the 
unique difference between the Bible and 
all other books; by making clear to him 
that it contains the Word of God—the 
Old Testament, the Word as God de- 
clared it through his prophets; the New 
Testament, the Word as he manifested it 
through his Son. The child will not 
learn this great fact by having it stated 
to him in these, or, indeed, in any terms; 
it must become his by a process of per- 
meation. 

Whatever else a story—any story—of 
the Old Testament is allowed to mean to 
him, it must be made to signify the de- 
sire of God to draw man to hin, to keep 
man close to him. ‘The love of God for 
the world he created is the essential theme 
of the Old Testament. Of every one of 
its stories, and most especially of those 
that particularly appeal to a child, it is 
the foundation. The care of the teacher 
must be to call the attention of the child 
to that foundation. The story of Abra- 
ham, who was called the Friend of God; 
the story of Moses, chosen by God to give 
the Moral Law to the people of God; the 
story of David, who defied the enemies of 
the hosts of God—these are apt to be the 
child’s “favorite stories.” It is the duty, 
as well as the privilege of the teacher to 
teach him not only that they are “true,” 
but how they are true, and how mightily. 

“God so loved the world!” In each 


Bible in the Child’s Life 


and every story of the Old Testament 
which has this significance the child 
should be taught to seek for it until, in 
each and every instance, he finds it. In 
the “fear” of God, in the “wrath” of God, 
even in the “vengeance” of God, abides 
still the love of God, the desire of God 
toward man. 

That is the word of the Old Testament. 
And, “God so loved the world, that he 
gave his only begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believeth on him should not perish, 
but have eternal life.’ This is the Word 
of the New Testament. The more fully, 
the more deeply, the word of the Old 
Testament has entered into the under- 
standing of the child, the more ready is 
he to receive the word of the New Testa- 
ment. The Life of Christ can never be 
to him merely the biography of the best 
man the earth has seen; it will always be 
to him the holy revelation of God, made 
flesh. Whatever else is said to the child 
of Christ, unfailingly it should be said 
to him that he was the Son of the living 
God; sent from God to man, to lead man 
to God—because “God so loved the world.” 

The Savior of the world, the~ Re- 
deemer, through whom alone man is able 
to draw near to God, Christ stands in 
this relation to the child no less than to 
the grown person; to live and grow in 
the knowledge of it is his most priceless 
heritage. The first mention of Christ 
comes to the child, usually, in the story 
of the Nativity, when he is still very 
young. But, babe though he may be, tell 
him that the Babe of whose birth he is 
hearing was God’s Son; born to help him, 
as well as everyone else, truly to know, 
and to love, and to serve God. Do not 
refrain from telling him also of the Cruci- 
fixion. Let him know, not only that 
Christ came to live for man, but also to 
die for man’s sins. ‘Too young to under- 
stand what sin is, what an atonement is, 
he will not be found too young to per- 
ceive, in the Sacrifice of Christ “the love 
of God, through Christ, to us.” 

When this much has been done for the 
child—what then? A sense of the nature 
of the Bible has become his. He knows 
what it is. The question now arises: Has 
he, in learning what the Bible is, learned, 
at the same time, to use it in his devo- 
tional life? 

A child’s devotional life consists of his 


134 Biblical Instruction by Correspondence 


prayers. Like the prayers of grown per- 
sons, they are petitions for pardon, for 
direction, for strength, and for protection 
—that these may be granted to him and 
to all others—and thanksgivings. He 
prays to God, because God loves him; 
and because he loves God. ‘The Bible, 
he has learned, can tell him how God 
loves him; and how he should love God. 
By giving Christ, God showed his love for 
man. Man can show his love for God only 
by trying to live as Christ lived. With 
the Bible he can learn to “follow the 
blessed steps of that most holy life” 
The child, nurtured in the knowledge of 
these things, will, inevitably, turn to the 
Bible for guidance, not alone in regard 
to his outward acts, but also in respect to 
his prayers. For the youngest child, as 
for the oldest grown person, to do this is 
truly to use the Bible in the devotional 
life. (See Worship, Children’s.) 
ELIZABETH McCRACKEN, 


BIBLE, VERSIONS OF THE.—Szz 
BIBLE IN THE S. S.; BIBLE, SIGNIFICANCE 
OF THE, IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 


BIBLICAL INSTRUCTION BY CORRE- 
SPONDENCE.—A correspondence course 
offers to the student certain features of 
great value, 7. e. 1. It provides opportunity 
for training to those to whom other courses 
are impossible. 

2. It furnishes an incentive to thor- 
ough study which the pursuit of the sub- 
ject by oneself would not give. 

3. Through correspondence the student 
comes in contact with a specialist who can 
supervise work, suggest readings and an- 
swer questions. Instruction under able 
ite qualified leaders is thus available for 
all. 

4, A correspondence course is individ- 
ual in method, adapted to the particular 
needs, ability, and time of the student. 
The aim being that more effective Sun- 
day-school teaching will result. 

The first correspondence school was 
conducted by the Apostle Paul, and his 
pupils included private individuals and 
whole churches. 

The modern correspondence school is 
the otugrowth of the Chautauqua move- 
ment founded by Bishop John H. Vincent 
(gq. v.) of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, assisted by Mr. Lewis Miller. 





Biblical Instruction by Correspondence 


(See Chautauqua Institution.) For many 
years Biblical and theological instruc- 
tion was given by this institution. This 

hase of its work was not financially 
profitable, for the fees charged were small, 
and after a time it was discontinued. 
Part of the work was then undertaken by 
the late President William R. Harper of 
the University of Chicago, who had been 
associated with Bishop Vincent in this 
work at Chautauqua. The courses still 
continue, some of them dealing with Bib- 
lical instruction. (See American Insti- 
tute of Sacred Literature.) 

Reverend A. A. Wright, D.D., was also 
associated with Bishop Vincent. In 1882, 
he organized the Boston Correspondence 
School, which was incorporated in 1899. 
This school has given instruction in New 
Testament Greek and some other Bib- 
liecal subjects. In 1888, the Scofield 
Correspondence School was organized. It 
gives a Bible study course only. 

In 1891, the general conference of the 
Free Baptists established correspondence 
courses which were unofficially connected 
with the Cobb Divinity School. Part of 
the instruction dealt with Biblical sub- 
jects. In 1896, the Church of the United 
Brethren in Christ established the Bible 
Normal Union with its headquarters at 
Dayton, Ohio. Its courses are intended to 
instruct Bible students and Sunday-school 
teachers in Biblical subjects. The Home 
Correspondence School of Springfield, 
Mass., established in 1897, and incorpor- 
ated in 1904, gives a course in elementary 
New Testament Greek; a course in the 
life of Christ in Greek, and a similar 
course in English. ‘These courses deal 
largely with the harmony of the Gospels. 
They also offer courses in the psychology 
of infancy and childhood, the psychology 
of adolescence, and the psychology of the 
Teligious life. 

The correspondence department of the 

Moody Bible Institute (q. v.) was estab- 
lished in 1899. Its work is largely Bib- 
lical in character. 
_ The correspondence courses of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, were 
organized in 1902 by the action of the 
General Conference of that church. They 
are connected with the Vanderbilt School 
of Theology, Nashville, Tenn. Instruc- 
tion is offered in ten courses in the Eng- 
lish Bible and New Testament Greek. 


135 Biblical Instruction by Correspondence 


In 1908, the Board of Sunday Schools 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church pro- 
vided for correspondence instruction in 
teacher training. This course is embodied 
in a series of eight books entitled The 
Worker and His Work. These books are 
arranged in six specialized First Stand- 
ard Teacher-Training Courses providing 
books for teachers in the five grades or 
departments of the school, and in addi- 
tion for superintendents. 

The Congregational Church offers cor- 
Tespondence courses for those who are 
now teaching and are unable to join a 
class. These courses are in no way in- 
ferior to those offered through classes. 
The student may proceed as rapidly as 
he will; he receives the personal attention 
and criticism of the instructor upon his 
entire course, and he is required to record 
in writing the results of his study. Spe- 
cial arrangements may be made with the 
Educational Secretary whereby the 
courses available may be pursued as cor- 
respondence courses. 

The Crozer Theological Seminary in 
its extension courses provides instruction 
on the Old and New Testament in the 
three years’ course which they offer. 

The United Evangelical Association 
has been conducting correspondence 
courses for its ministry under the direc- 
tion of Bishop F. C. Breyfogle. Part of 
its courses are Biblical. 

The Primitive Methodist Church of 
this country has also conducted corre- 
spondence courses for its ministry. 

Drake University under the manage- 
ment of the Christian Church, and Oska- 
loosa College at Oskaloosa, Iowa, give 
Biblical instruction by correspondence, 

In its five years’ nonresident course in 
theology, the Temple University of Phil- 
adelphia includes some Biblical instruc- 
tion. 

The usual method of procedure is the 
assignment of a textbook. After more or 
less thorough study, there is an examina- 
tion. The passing grade varies in the dif- 
ferent schools. Some courses are given 
in a series of pamphlets especially pre- 
pared; others furnish their pupils with 
lesson sheets. A weekly, bi-monthly, or 
monthly report is required in most cases. 

Most of the theological schools do not 
allow credit for correspondence work. 
Some other institutions doing this kind 


Biblical Literature 


of work, however, allow credit toward the 
resident course. This has been notably 
the case at the University of Chicago. 

S. G. AYREs. 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE.—SeExr Br- 
BLE, How THE TEACHER SHOULD KNow 
THE; BIBLE IN THE §. S.; BIBLE, Sia- 
NIFICANCE OF THE, IN ReEticious Epv- 
CATION. 


BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP, MODERN, 
AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.—The 
problem which this topic raises is pri- 
marily a practical one. There is no longer 
any question with reference to the method 
of Bible study pursued by modern 
scholars. The older allegoristic and har- 
monistic methods have been definitely set 
aside. It is now generally agreed that the 
Bible is to be studied like any other book. 


The same principles of literary criticism. 


are to be applied to it as to any ancient 
work. It is also generally agreed that 
the application of this method to the study 
of the Bible necessarily results in a modi- 
fication of the traditional view with refer- 
ence to its origin. 

How extensive this modification must 
be is still a question, and perhaps always 
will remain such. ‘There are, however, 
some commonly accepted conclusions. It 
is, for instance, agreed by most scholars 
that the Mosaic Law originated, in large 
part at least, later than the time of Moses, 
that the Davidic Psalms were most of 
them post-exilic, that the Wisdom Liter- 
erature was for the most part written 
centuries after the time of Solomon, that 


the last twenty-seven chapters of the book . 


of Isaiah were not the work of Isaiah the 
son of Amoz, and that the book of Daniel 
was composed in the second century B. C. 
It is also probable that as a result of the 
survival of the fittest the range of these 
commonly accepted conclusions will be 
gradually extended until they embrace 
most of the main points relative to the 
origin and structure of the Biblical books. 
In any case the legitimacy of this critical 
work is generally admitted. The only 
question then that remains, so far as the 
church itself is concerned, is one of a 
practical nature. What attitude should 
be taken toward critical scholarship in 
popular Biblical instruction? How far 
may the methods and results of Biblical 


136 


Biblical Scholarship 


criticism be utilized in the work of the 
Sunday school ? | 

From what has just been said it fol- 
lows that an attitude of hostility on the 
part of the Sunday-school teacher towards 
modern Biblical scholarship is wholly un- 
warranted and to be deeply deplored. 
Such an attitude arrays the intelligence 
of the day against the Christian faith and 
awakens among the uninformed needless 
fear. That there is no necessary dishar- 
mony between the modern view of the 
Bible and a vital Christian piety has i 
demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt 
by the experience of the past half cen- 
tury. Many of the leading critics haye 
been deeply religious men with an active 
interest in the work of the church; and 
the great body of ministers and laymen, 
who have accepted the newer view of 
Scripture, have retained undimmed their 
evangelical faith. 

There is good ground to believe that 
the new light cast upon the Bible by 
modern research has given to the sacred 
volume a realism and power of appeal 
that it did not have before. The sense of 
pure mystery and blind reverence in its 
presence may have declined somewhat, 
and the simplicity of the older view, 
which saw in every word of the Bible the 
direct utterance of the divine Spirit, may 
be missed by many. ‘T'o them the inter- 
twining of the human and the divine in 
Scripture, as is presupposed in the modern 
view, many seem complex and confusing. 
Still after allowance has been made for 
all such facts as these, it will have to be 
admitted that many hindrances to faith 
have been removed by the newer method 
of Bible study, that many obscure pas- 
sages have been illumined, and that for 
many people a new breath of life has been 
made to blow over the entire volume. 

But while there is thus no reason why 
the Sunday school should stand in any 
fear of modern Biblical scholarship, it is 
still true that the purely scientific study 
of the Bible is not adapted to the needs of 
the Sunday school, and that there 1s, 
therefore, need of caution and good judg- 
ment in one’s use of the results of modern 
criticism. It is to be borne in mind that. 
the church is in a process of transition 
from a very strict theory of inspiration 
to a broader and more fluid conception of 
it, and that in this process of change there | 








be: 
: 


Biblical Scholarship 

‘is necessarily more or less of danger that 
the faith of some may be disturbed. It is 
then a matter of the utmost importance 
that the difference between the new and 
the old views should not be unduly em- 
phasized, that on the contrary the transi- 
tion from the one to the other should be 
made so carefully and sympathetically 
‘that the pupil will feel that he has lost 
nothing essential as a result of the change. 

In view of these facts some practical 
directions to the Sunday-school teacher 
‘may be made. Always place the stress 
upon the religious teaching of the Biblical 
passage or book under consideration. If 
questions of criticism are referred to, it 
‘should be in a wholly subordinate way. 
‘One may assume the results of modern 
-eritical scholarship, but he should not 
make them the staple of discussion. 'To 
do so would be to divert attention from 
the main theme of Scripture and to 
awaken just suspicion with reference to 
‘one’s own religious seriousness. It is 
‘quite as mistaken for the Sunday-school 
teacher to be a champion of the new 
view as of the old. He should be a par- 
tisan of neither. His one task, it should 
not be forgotten, is so to present the Bible 
to those under his instruction that it will 
inevitably commend itself to them as the 
sure word of God. And this can be done 
only by placing constant stress upon that 
element in Scripture, in which its ac- 
‘knowledged authority is to be found; 
namely, its religious teaching. 

2 View the Bible against the back- 
ground of heathenism. This is the only 
way in which its true significance can be 
appreciated. ‘To test everything in it by 
our modern European and Christian 
‘standards is misleading. The Bible orig- 
inated in a heathen environment and can 
be properly appreciated only in its rela- 
tion to that environment. ‘The fear that 
our Scriptures might suffer by way of 
comparison with other sacred literatures 
Is baseless. The discovery of Babylonian 
parallels to the Biblical accounts of crea- 
tion and of the flood has only accentuated 
the unique character of the Bible. One 
needs but read in the Babylonian poems 
how “the gods cowered like dogs at the 
edge of the heavens,” and how they “gath- 
ered like flies above the sacrifice,” to feel 
at what an infinite distance the Biblical 
accounts are removed from them. No 





137 


Biblical Scholarship 


clearer evidence of the inspiration of 
Scripture is to be found than in such a 
comparison as this between it and its 
heathen analogues. 

3. Bear in mind the fact that very 
different 1deas of authorship and very dif- 
ferent methods of literary composition, 
from those which are now current, pre- 


vailed among ancient Oriental peoples. 


If this is done, it will be seen that there 
is nothing in the current critical view of 
the origin of the different Biblical books 
that necessarily carries with it any idea 
of a want of good faith on the part of the 
Biblical authors. If Deuteronomy orig- 
inated in the seventh century B. C. and 
Daniel in the second century B. C., there 
was no element of deception in their com- 
position. They were written according 
to literary methods well understood in 
their own time. And so likewise with 
Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and other portions 
of Scripture which according to the cur- 
rent critical view were not the work of 
their traditional authors. 

4, Learn the logic of the modern view 
of the Bible. The traditional view was 
based upon the theory of verbal inspira- 
tion or of strict infallibility; and this 
theory in turn rested upon a dualistic 
metaphysics and an empiristic theory of 
thought. God was supposed to stand in 
antithesis to the world, and the human 
mind in its perception of truth was looked 
upon as passive. This type of philosophy, 
however, is now obsolete. On the one 
hand, in its place has come the doctrine 
of the divine immanence. God works 
through the natural as well as through 
the miraculous. It is not necessary that 
he should perform a miracle in order to 
speak to men. He can reveal himself to 
them, even if much that is imperfect and 
transitory is bound up with the transmis- 
sion of his word. There is then nothing 
in the thought of a divine revelation that 
implies the idea of infallibility. 

On the other hand, we have rejected the 
empiristic theory of thought and have 
come to believe in the constitutive activity 
of the human mind. The mind is not 
the passive recipient of a ready made 
knowledge; but, on the occasion of various 
stimuli from without, creates for itself its 
own world. When then the inspired seer 
recelves an impulse from God, he does 
not transmit that impulse unchanged to 


Big Brother Movement 


men. He first transmutes it into the 
forms of human thought and then com- 
municates it to the world. There is then 
nothing in the idea of inspiration that 
carries with it the notion of strict infalli- 
bility. Our modern theory of thought is 
distinctly unfavorable to such a concep- 
tion of inspiration. 

Again, there is the idea of evolution, 
by which modern science and history are 
largely dominated. This idea implies that 
God’s revelation of himself was progres- 
sive. It was, then, imperfect to begin 
with in the sense of being uncomplete; 
and if so, the idea of infallibility mani- 
festly does not inhere in the notion of 
revelation. In addition, furthermore, to 
all this we have now come to accept the 
pragmatic test of truth. The old idea was 
that a proposition, in order to be believed, 
must either be demonstrated by strict 
logic or be certified to by an absolute ob- 
jective authority. As in religion the 
latter was alone possible, it was thought 
that an absolutely infallible Bible was 
essential to religious certainty. This view 
is now obsolete. We now recognize that 
the Bible produces conviction in us, not 
because of any technical infallibility that 
may be supposed to belong to it, but be- 
cause of the yital appeal which it makes 
to the highest element of our nature. It 
finds us, it brings us face to face with 
God, and in so doing carries with it the 
assurance of its own inspiration. | 

Such are the general philosophical and 
theological conceptions that underlie the 
modern view of the Bible. If they are 
thoroughly mastered and if the other 
directions above given are carefully ob- 
served, there is no reason why modern 
Biblical scholarship should not prove an 
important ally of the Sunday school. 
(See also other articles on the Bible.) 

A. C. Knupson. 


BIG BROTHER MOVEMENT.—The 
object of this movement is to unite into 
an organized body men who are willing to 
interest themselves by individual effort in 
the welfare of boys who have been ar- 
raigned in the Children’s Court, as well as 
in other boys whose conditions of life call 
for such care. The work has in view the 
boys’ equipment for good citizenship. The 
fact that the movement was begun in be- 
half of children who had been arraigned 


138 


i 


Big Brother Movement. 
in the Children’s Court is significant in 
two respects: (1) The law had failed to 
deal adequately with certain aspects of the 
cases brought before the court; (2) it 
had failed for the lack of a remedy which 
the Big Brother movement was organized 
to supply; namely, the influence of indi- 
vidual sympathy, oversight, and practical 
aid. (See Juvenile Court.) 

Mr. Ernest K. Coulter, who in 1904 
was Clerk of the Children’s Court, New 
York city, had become convinced that, 
the boys and girls brought before it were 
unfortunate and neglected rather than 
criminal; that they were victims of defec- 
tive environment, of careless or immoral 
parents and lack of healthful amusement 
rather than deliberately lawless. Badly 
fed and housed, accustomed to look for 
play in degrading associations of street 
life, and without moral guidance and 
sympathy, the children derived only par- 
tial benefit from their discipline by the 
court. If sent to some corrective reform- 
atory institution, it was noticed that they 
often returned to their families with a 
deeper knowledge of wrong-doing, and 
an increased determination to do wrong, 
and greater skill and courage, and with a 
better prospect of escaping detection. 

The immediate occasion of foundin 
the Big Brother movement was afforde 
by a meeting of the Men’s Club of the 
Central Presbyterian Church in New 
York city. At that meeting, in response 
to an appeal by Mr. Coulter, forty men 
offered their services. The success at- 
tained by these volunteers resulted in the 
incorporation of the society, the framing 
of a constitution, formation of commit- 
tees, and appointment of officers. There 
is a paid staff consisting of a general 
secretary, a Court investigator, a financial 
secretary, and an office assistant. The 
general secretary directs the work, as- 
signing to individual Big Brothers, 


ae | 


according to their qualifications, the care. 


of the boys, or little brothers, and by 


addressing Sunday-school classes, fra- 


ternal organizations and clubs of various 
kinds, interesting as many as possible to 
become members of the society. All mem- 
bers must be believers in the teachings of 
Christ. A majority of those who are most 
efficient as Big Brothers have been en- 


gaged in Sunday-school work and bring 


to their task the valuable experience 





| i 
| Big Brother Movement 


gained therein. The Court investigator 
attends the Children’s Court every day 
and hears and investigates each case. He 
is also director of the boys’ club work in 
the evening. The financial secretary re- 
-eeives subscriptions and membership fees 
and solicits financial support for the 
movement. 

The methods of the Big Brothers center 

upon and are practically determined by 
the special emphasis placed on personal 
influence and the relationship between 
‘Big Brother and boy, The former helps 
the latter by visiting him in his home, 
becoming acquainted with his parents, 
getting him to return to school in case he 
is a truant, procuring employment for the 
boy in case the family need his help or, in 
extreme cases, by giving or obtaining for 
him financial aid. The Big Brothers are 
eareful to use existing agencies in behalf 
of the boys in preference to securing new 
ones—to borrow the use of the club rooms, 
‘gymnasium, summer camps, encouraging 
the boys to interest themselves in eventing 
schools, church clubs, etc. The Big 
Brother’s companionship has nearly al- 
ways produced happy and hopeful results. 
He is entrusted with considerable discre- 
tion in helping and uplifting the little 
brother, or brothers, assigned to him. 
He is expected to express his sympathy 
and guiding interest in his own way, and 
to give as much time as he can to the boy 
‘whom he agrees to aid. 
_ During the hot season summer camps 
are loaned to the Big Brothers for the 
use of the boys who are thus afforded sea 
or country air and good food and sur- 
Toundings. Groton, St. Paul’s, Prince- 
ton, and other educational institutions 
have been generous in this respect. A 
farm at Stockton, New Jersey, has been 
given to the society. The Big Brother 
also is expected to, and often does, receive 
the boy into his own home, to take him 
now and then to some elevating place of 
‘amusement, and in general to aid him in 
living a better life. Boys who have ap- 
‘peared before the Children’s Court receive 
the preference, but, after these, such other 
‘boys as may be brought to the notice of 
the Big Brothers and committed to their 
charge. 

The results of such efforts are seen in 
the increased self-respect, improved ap- 
pearance and habits of the boys. It is 


= 


re 
| Lh 


139 


Big Sisters, The 


claimed of those who have Big Brothers 
that only three or four per cent are 
brought into court the second time. As 
a rule the boys are easily influenced for 


good. Official reports of the progress of 


the movement suggest that reformatories 
and other such institutions would be far 
fewer in number if, after their first of- 
fense youthful delinquents had passed 
into the care of Big Brothers. Forty-two 
cities have organizations along similar 
lines and more than 150 cities have cor- 
responded with the New York organiza- 
tion in regard to the Big Brother move- 
ment. The office of the general secretary 
is at 200 Fifth avenue, New York city. 
J. W. RUSSELL. 


BIG SISTERS, THE.—The aim of the 
incorporated organization of the Big 
Sisters is to help unfortunate children, 
especially girls who are without proper 
guardianship, who are delinquents and 
who find their way into the Juvenile 
Court (qg. v.). To these children in the 
time of greatest need, the Big Sisters ex- 
tend the hand that saves them from an 
institution and often gives them their first 
real chance in life, 

The society was first formed in 1911, 
by the individual efforts of Mrs, William 
K. Vanderbilt, who watched the work of 
the Big Brother movement, and was cer- 
tain that an organization for girls on sim- 
ilar lines would prove of the utmost bene- 
fit. The expectations have been fully 
justified, for the Big Sister society has 
grown until it now numbers over one hun- 
dred members, and during its years of 
activity it has assisted several hundred 
little sisters. 

In 1912, the Big Sisters was incor- 
porated in the city of New York with a 
Board of ten Directors, and is now in a 
position to accept legacies and subscrip- 
tions. The officers are: President, Mrs. 
William K. Vanderbilt; Secretary, Mrs. 
Ralph Sanger; Treasurer, Mrs. Willard 
Parker, Jr.; General Secretary, Mrs. 
Madeline Evans. The headquarters of the 
organization are at 200 Fifth avenue, New 
York city. 

There are two classes of membership in 
the general organization: active members 
who pay $2 a year dues and take an active 
interest in the children whose cases are 
assigned them; and associate members, 


Big Sisters, The 


who contribute annually any sum as they 
may feel inclined. No case is assigned 
until the general secretary or a member of 
the Board of Directors has had an inter- 
view with the prospective Big Sister. 
Each Big Sister is instructed to report in 
writing at least once a month regarding 
her charge. 

An important department of the work 
is the little sister Home established at 
White Plains, N. Y. ‘There, the girls 
are sent who are suffering from ill-nour- 
ishment, or from mental and moral 
anzmia, and others whose homes need at- 
tention. The Home is under the direct 
supervision of a matron who instructs the 
girls in housekeeping, sewing, farming, 
and hygiene. During the summer months, 
groups of little sisters go out from the 
city for recreation and rest, and camp 
out in the grounds of the Home. 

Letters to the secretary from many 
cities and towns have told of the interest 
felt in the Big Sisters and show a desire 
to engage in work of similar character; 
but the exact number of Big Sister or- 
ganizations cannot be stated. 

A study of the cases recorded demon- 
strates the value of a Big Sister. Expe- 
rience has proved that girls respond to 
right treatment as readily as do the boys. 
Each girl is made to understand that there 
is some one who cares for her welfare, and 
this often means a new horizon when the 
outlook is most discouraging. For the 
girls who desire it and who properly may 
be employed, positions in wholesome sur- 
roundings and with an opportunity of 
advancement are found. Many who have 
suffered from the lack of healthful exer- 
cise are placed in gymnasiums, and others 
in night classes: where they may learn 
something that will be of permanent value 
to them. The homes of many are made 
brighter and some are helped to move from 
vicious into good environment. Often 
money is not so much needed in these cases 
as personal interest and attention. 

More than 10,000 children are annually 
arraigned in the Children’s Court of New 
York county and most of them are the 
victims of bad surroundings. It is appar- 
ent that the Big Sisters may render large 
and valuable service to the little sisters 
by their friendship and care. (See Girl, 
The; Girl, The City, and the S. 8.) 

CORNELIA GREEN. 


140 


— 
ee 


Biography 


BIOGRAPHY AND THE AGE AT 
WHICH IT APPEALS TO THE PUPIL.— 
During the Beginners’ and the Primary 
periods the child, so far as literary ca- 
pacity is concerned, is in its poetic or 
myth age. Its favorite stories center 
about the world of fancy; its favorite 
characters are children. But at eight or 
nine there comes a change: the child 
enters the heroic age of his development. 
Motor activity has reached its height; 
reading has begun, and the world has be- 
come enormously enlarged and enriched, 
The boy must now have his hero, some 
picturesque personality who presents to 
him concretely a picture of what he 
dreams he himself might be. He is liy- 
ing an intensely individual life; in his 
games he is playing solely for himself, and 
therefore biography, since it is individu- 
alistic—a central figure to which all is 
subordinated—appeals to him with force. 
Society and the great human motives con- 
cern him little. He now demands the 
spectacular and the dramatic rather than 
the rational and the reflective, 

With adolescence there comes another 
change. Biography is still demanded, 
but it must emphasize now the more social 
and humanistic elements. A fictitious 
hero is supplanted by a real one—Living- 
stone, or Washington, or Lincoln, or some 
other man who was dominated by love or 
patriotism or humanitarianism or other 
noble motive. The story of King Arthur 
appeals to the preadolescent from the 
motor side. He is thrilled by the pictur- 
esque tournaments and the knight errant 
adventures. ‘To the adolescent, however, 
it must emphasize another element: loy- 
alty to the peerless Arthur, the brother 
bond of the Table Round, the ideals of 
chivalry, and the deeper meanings of the 
Grail. The limit of the age when biog- 
raphy is central may be placed at sixteen. 

F, L. Pattee. 


BIOGRAPHY, PLACE OF, IN RELI- 
GIOUS EDUCATION.—Like the secular 
school, the Sunday school must adapt its 
curriculum to the needs and capacities 
of its pupils at the various periods of 
their development. Race culture began 
with story-telling, and so must child cul- 
ture. The stories that delight childhood 
are those that are filled with the wonder 
and the myth quality which is found in 


a 
16 


Ue 


Biography 141 Biography 
pupil should feel as if for the time being 


change. 


_ phasized. 


the most primitive literature. There are 


_ other requisites: the story must center 


sharply about one person or some crea- 
ture personified; and it must make no 
attempt at comment or moralization or at 


sketching in background of history or so- 
ciety. But prominent as this centralized 


human element is, the story is not a biog- 


raphy. It is a poem rather, or a myth, 


or perhaps a romance. 

During the pre-adolescent period the 
child’s demand for stories undergoes a 
The boy has entered the restless 
age of adventure. The romantic half 
light of myth and wonder-story no longer 
satisfies. (See Wonder, The Age of, in 


Childhood.) There must be now a sharply 
defined hero; there must be continuity 
of narrative and coordinated detail; 
_ and there must be concreteness as to time 


and place and action—in other words the 
demand now is for biography. (See Biog- 
raphy and . . . the Pupil.) In most 
boys’ books the hero element is frankly em- 
“When first we see our hero 
he is standing on the India wharf of a 
small shipping town,” begins the book, 
and from that moment our eyes seldom 
leave this central figure. 

Secular schools at this period make use 
of the hero tales evolved during the cor- 
responding age of the race: biographies 


_ of such leaders as Achilles, Ulysses, Sieg- 
fried, Thor, Beowulf, Roland. 


. In the 
Sunday school the biographies studied 
should come largely from the Old Testa- 
ment. ‘The lives of the Patriarchs fur- 
nish excellent material. The life his- 
tory of Joseph is doubtless one of the 


most perfect stories in the world for use 


in the education of pre-adolescents. The 
story of David is almost as good. Other 
Old Testament characters of especial value 


for this period are Moses, Joshua, Saul, 


Solomon, Samuel, Samson, Daniel, and 
Elijah. These Bible biographies are 


_ unique in one thing at least: though tney 
are plain tales told with childlike sim- 


plicity, with no attempt to point out a 


_ lesson or to draw a moral, yet they teach 


inevitably the deepest of lessons. They 
are fundamentally religious. 

He who teaches this Old Testament 
biography to pre-adolescents should have 
something of the childlike spirit of the 


original narrator. He must make each 


_ character intensely vivid and alive. The 


he himself were passing through the scenes 
portrayed. ‘The little girl who said she 
thought she should know Moses if she 
met him on the street was unconsciously 
paying tribute to her teacher. The learner 
must gain the impression that the Bible 
is a storehouse of marvelously interest- 
ing stories. ‘There is to be little moral- 
izing, and no stopping in the midst of 
the tale to drive home a lesson: to make 
the character live so that he becomes a 
real and permanent possession of the 
pupil is the teacher’s task. 

A series of representative biographies 
driven home at this impressionable age 
will furnish an outline for all future Bible 
study. With many adults the mass of 
Scripture facts is a chaos without any 
logical sequence. Had they begun their 
studies in childhood with Old Testament 
biography and mastered thoroughly ten 
or twelve of the great central lives, it 
would have given them the ground plan 
of the whole Book and furnished them 
material upon which to build all their 
subsequent work in Bible study. 

Parallel biographies can be introduced 
from secular history and literature. With 
Samson can be presented Hercules and his 
seven labors for mankind. While study- 
ing the early life of David, Lincoln can be 
used as a parallel. The pupil of twelve 
should know at least the major outlines of 
many representative lives. Livingstone is 
especially valuable. Men like Franklin 
and Garfield who began life as poor boys 
and worked their way up furnish the best 
of biographical material. The lesson hour 
may be made rich and fascinating and 
compelling if its opportunities are used 
to the full. 

With adolescence a change must be 
made in the teaching material. The old 
biographies may be reviewed, but the em- 
phasis now must be upon adolescent ideals. 
David and Jonathan, the tender story of 
Ruth, the heroism of Esther appeal now, 
but the textbook of textbooks is the New 
Testament. Biography as mere hero tale 
no longer awakens response. ‘There must 
be a background of history and geogra- 
phy and sociology, perspective, cause and 
effect. The secular schools abandon bi- 
ography now and teach history with bio- 
graphical interludes, but the Sunday 
school, owing to the distinctly biograph- 


Bishop of London’s Council 


ical nature of the Bible and the great ne- 
cessity of retaining interest, may continue 
the subject considerably longer. The time 
will soon come, however, when biography 
will prove inadequate as lesson material. 

And right here it is well to consider 
the weakness of the biographical method: 
it gives the wrong emphasis. History, 
in spite of Carlyle’s dictum, is not alone 
the biographies of a few great men. This 
conception may be valuable for early ado- 
lescent use, but it quickly falls short as 
a working hypothesis. There must be a 
view of the mass. The central figure, 
however commanding, blends into the 
great composite picture of the society of 
the time. It leaves untouched some of 
the silent forces that after all are the 
compelling forces of history. During the 
middle and later adolescent period and 
after it biography must be used as sup- 
plementary material. The emphasis 
should be placed elsewhere. 

F.. L. Pattee. 


BISHOP OF LONDON’S SUNDAY 
SCHOOL COUNCIL.—The Council was or- 
ganized in accordance with a resolution 
passed at the Diocesan Conference of 
1909, and was formed early in the follow- 
ing year. 

The object of the Council is to promote 
and,maintain the efficiency of the church 
Sunday schools, and to be a center for con- 
sultative purposes on all questions relat- 
ing to Sunday-school work throughout the 
diocese of London. Its purpose is not to 
supersede the existing organizations, the 
Sunday School Institute (see Church of 
England), the National Society (q. v.), 
the Society of the Catechism, and the 
various Rural Deanal Sunday School 
Associations which have been doing excel- 
lent work in the diocese for many years, 
but to stimulate and codrdinate every 
effort made for the development of the 
Sunday schools and the efficiency of the 
teaching staffs. The Council consists of 

1. Ex officio members: The Bishop’s 
suffragan, the archdeacons, the Principals 
of Church Training Colleges in the dio- 
cese and the Diocesan Inspector of schools. 

2. Members nominated by the Bishop 
of London, twelve clerical and twelve lay 
members, six of whom are ladies. 

3. Elected members, one clerical and 
one lay member from each Rural Deanery. 


142 


oe 


—. 


Bishop of London’s Council 


The nominated and elected members | 
hold office for three years. The Council | 
meets at least four times a year. The 
ordinary meetings are held on the third 
Thursday in January, April, July, and | 
October. The members of the Council — 
also meet in three Divisional Committees, 
one for each division of the diocese, and 
these Divisional Committees report to the 
Council at its quarterly meetings. The 
first meeting was held on January 20, 
1910, the Bishop of Kensington (now the 
Bishop of Salisbury) being the chairman, 
The first work of the Council was to se- 
cure some reliable account of the condi- 
tion of the Sunday-school work in the dio- 
ceses, and a form of inquiry was sent out 
to the incumbents for the purpose of 
gaining the required information as to the 
number of teachers, pupils, average attend- 
ance, annual expenditure on Sunday- 
school work, chief difficulties in the 
work, and suggestions for overcoming 
them. The report on this inquiry was 
drawn up in June, 1910, and presented 
to the Bishop of London. This report, 
while bearing testimony to the devoted 
service of a large band of earnest teachers 
(17,000), laid stress on the absence of 
systematic training, and the lack of op- 
portunities of instruction for those who 
desire to render themselves more efficient — 
in this important work. The Council 
recommended the appointment of an ex- 
perienced and specially qualified clergy- 
man to give his whole time to Sunday- 
school work, whose services and skilled 
advice should be at the disposal of the 
clergy, and Sunday-school teachers within 
the diocese. To carry out these recom- 
mendations the Bishop of London ap- 
pointed the Rev. H. A. Lester, M.A., 
Vice-principal of Warrington Training 
College, and University Extension Lec- 
turer in Education of Manchester and 
Liverpool Universities, to be Director of 
the Sunday-school work in the diocese. 
The Director began his work in October, 
1911, and has organized centers for the 
instruction of teachers, and given courses 
of lectures on the principles of education 
as applied to Sunday-school work, and on 
the art of teaching in thirty different 
parts of the diocese. The teachers have 
shown great eagerness to be instructed, 
and some 7,000 have presented themselves — 
for instruction, attending weekly lectures, 


Black 


/ writing essays and forming study circles 
to read and discuss the principles of teach- 
ing. Over fifteen hundred of these teach- 
ers offered themselves for examination in 
the principles of teaching and gained the 
 Council’s certificate. A Syllabus of Reli- 
gious Instruction for Sunday schools has 
been drawn up and circulated, providing a 
graded scheme of instruction: (a) Cover- 
ing the period of Sunday-school life; (b) 
_ Ensuring the progressive teaching of the 
Christian faith in its due proportion; 
(ce) Adapted to the mental and spiritual 
eapacity of children at the various stages 
of their development. Copies can be ob- 
tained at the office of the Bishop of Lon- 
-don’s Sunday School Council, 13 Ser- 
_jeants’ Inn, Fleet street, E. C. 

To facilitate the teaching of this sylla- 
_bus, the Council has arranged for the 
issue of lesson-books drawn up by expert 
_educationists. These manuals for teach- 
ers, the London Diocesan Sunday School 
_ Manuals are published by Messrs. Long- 
mans, Green & Co., at 1/6 each, and a 





handbook on Sunday School Teaching, its 


Aims and its Methods, has been edited 
by the Director and published by the same 
firm, price 2/-. In order to band the 
teachers together and to promote a cor- 
porate spirit among them, a scheme of 
enrollment has been started. Over 4,000 
are already on the diocesan roll, and it 
is hoped by this means to help to fix a 
- recognized standard for the office of Sun- 
_day-school teacher, and to emphasize the 
Teal link between the work of the teacher 
_and the general life of the church. 
At the request of the incumbents Sun- 
_ day schools are visited Sunday by Sunday, 
and a conference is held with the clergy 
and teachers at the conclusion of the visit. 
So keenly is this part of the Council’s 
work appreciated that the Director finds 
his Sundays engaged twelve months 
ahead. Up to the present time the 
Council is only at the beginning of its 
work, but it is evident that the attempt to 
raise the efficiency of the Sunday schools 
is generally welcomed throughout the 


diocese. H. A. Lester. 


BLACK, ISRAEL PUTNAM (1845- 
1903).—Associated with Primary Union 
work from its inception to his death. For 
over thirty-two years a primary teacher in 
Philadelphia; county primary superin- 


143 


Blackall 


tendent; first president of the Philadel- 
phia Union organized in 1879, and secre- 
tary of the International Union (1891- 
93). Writer for Sunday-school period- 
icals and author Practical Primary Plans 
for Primary Teachers of the Sunday 
School, and editor for seven years of the 
International Primary Bulletin. 
J. ‘Tl. McoFaruanp. 


BLACKALL, CHRISTOPHER RUBEY 
(1830- ).—Editor and Sunday-school 
worker. Dr, Blackall was born in Albany, 
N. Y., and spent the early years of his 
life in that city. Choosing medicine as 
his profession he was graduated at the 
Rush Medical College, and for a time was 
in active practice. During the Civil War 
he was for two years surgeon of the 33rd 
Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteers. 
After his army experience he returned to 
Chicago, which had previously been his 
home and resumed his medical work. 

In 1865, he gave up the practice of 
medicine and began to devote his entire 
time to Sunday-school work. His first 
official position as a Sunday-school worker 
was that of secretary of the Chicago Sun- 
day School Union. In 1866 he was pro- 
moted to be the general superintendent of 
the Chicago Sunday School Union, suc- 
ceeding John H. Vincent (qg. v.) in that 
office. In 1867, he accepted an appoint- 
ment as district secretary of the Amer- 
ican Baptist Publication Society. In 
1868, the Publication Society established 
a branch house in Chicago, and Dr. Black- 
all was made its first manager. After 
eleven years of faithful and successful 
service in Chicago he was transferred to 
the New York branch house of the Publi- 
cation Society in 1879, and held that posi- 
tion until 1882, when he was again trans- 
ferred to the headquarters of the Publica- 
tion Society in Philadelphia, and made 
the editor of its Sunday-school periodicals. 
This position he still (1915) occupies. 

Dr. Blackall has always been an inde- 
fatigable worker. As the periodical editor 
of the Publication Society he has had 
under his charge a large number of papers 
and periodicals, among which may be 
mentioned The Baptist Teacher, the vari- 
ous quarterlies of the Uniform Series, and 
in later years the Keystone Graded Series. 
In 1884, under his urgent advice, the So- 
ciety began the publication of the Baptist 


Blackboard 


Superintendent, a periodical which has 
been of great service in aiding and stim- 
ulating Sunday-school superintendents, 
and which has been the medium for the 
expression of new ideas and plans in Sun- 
day-school teaching and work. In 1910, 
at Dr. Blackall’s earnest insistence, the 
Publication Society began the issue of 
Home and School for special use in the 
Home Department. In all matters per- 
taining to progressive movements in the 
Sunday-school world Dr. Blackall has in- 
variably been in the forefront, and ready 
to aid all plans and methods adapted to 
make Sunday-school work more effective. 
To him the Sunday-school workers of the 
Baptist denomination are particularly 
indebted for suggestions of improvement 
and uplift, and he is regarded as one of 
the wisest and sanest of leaders. 

Dr. Blackall’s sympathies and efforts 
have not been restricted to his own de- 
nomination. For many years he has been 
connected with the International Sunday 
School Association (gq. v.). During its 
entire existence he was the secretary, and 
one of the principal leaders in the Sunday 
School Editorial Association. (See Edi- 
torial Association, S. 8.) Was one of the 
prime movers in the formation of the 
Sunday School Council of Evangelical 
Denominations (qg. v.). As the one who 
has been longest in continuous service, Dr. 
Blackall is generally recognized by his 
fellow-workers as the “dean” among them. 

Though his time has been closely oc- 
cupied by his editorial duties, Dr. Black- 
all has found opportunity for outside 
work. In his earlier years he wrote the 
cantatas of Belshazzar and Ruth, which in 
their day had no small vogue; he has also 
written and published Our Sunday School 
Work and How To Do It; Stories About 
Jesus; Lessons on the Lord’s Prayer; A 
Story of Six Decades, and from seventy- 
five to one hundred hymns, many of which 
have been used in Sunday-school song 
services. His editorial and other writings 
have had a large circulation, and have had 
much influence for good. 

A. J. ROWLAND. 


BLACKBOARD AND ITS USE.—In 
proportion as the Sunday school rises 
above the status of a children’s church and 
becomes a real school, the educational idea 
tends to prevail. One of the manifesta- 


144 


Pi 
Blackboard 


tions of this is the blackboard, which 
should be used in the Sunday school as 
in other schools. Real teaching and real 
learning require educational methods and 
facilities. 'The blackboard, indispensable 
in the public schools, is just as useful in 
a Bible school. (See Clark, Samuel Well- 
man. . 

The forms of the blackboard are many. 
The common wall board and the portable 
board on a stand are those most used. 
There are flexible black fabrics that roll 
like maps, and there are small boards for 
class use. Sometimes slates are used, or 
pads of white paper. These latter may be 
small, for use with a few pupils, or they 
may be large enough for a roomful. They 
should be suspended properly and marked 
with oil crayons of various colors. Such 
have the advantage of cleanliness and 
clearness. Sometimes white sheets are 
prepared by multigraph processes and 
then each pupil can have a copy in his 
hand. Some teachers print their black- 
boards with an ordinary press, which gives 
them an unlimited number of copies to 
distribute to a large class. 

The uses of the blackboard are mani- 
fest. The eye is so important an avenue 
to the mind as to make it of the greatest 
service in teaching. Graphic methods, 
intelligently used, draft the visual faculty 
into service and strongly reénforce the 
spoken words. The textbooks furnish 
printed lesson- material, and any signifi- 
cant portion of this may be transferred — 
to a blackboard, which makes the same 
lesson available for all the class gr school. 
The teacher is enabled thereby to give 
point to his words and make more sure the 
common understanding. If the lesson 
material is concerned with geography this 
may be transferred to the blackboard, sim- 
plified or modified in a manner expressly 
suited to immediate needs. Diagrams 
may be made in the same way, and charts 
that bring out any desired feature for pur- 
poses of teaching. Maps and charts are 
but modifications of the blackboard idea, 
and their use is to be commended. | 

Added value is given to the blackboard 
by the rich symbolism of Biblical religion. 
Symbols are very ancient and they speak | 
all languages, needing no translation. — 
Such are the cross, the crown, the halo, 
the dove, the cloud, the eye, the ear, the 
hand, the heart, the shepherd’s crook, the — 


Blackboard 


altar, the vase, the lamp, the tree, the 


star, the anchor, the lamb, the tower, the 
wall, the tent, the scroll and all kinds of 
geometrical figures. ‘Their use has be- 
come classic, which places a valuable in- 
strument in the hand of the wise teacher. 
There are all kinds of artistic forms and 
devices which may be placed on the board 
to outline a lesson, or to lay emphasis 


upon any desired truth or principle. 
_ Acrostics are a favorite blackboard device, 
and so are letters and all sorts and shapes 
_ of cards previously prepared for pinning 
_ to the board. 


Concerning all these it may be said that 
they should be strictly subordinated to 
the teaching end, in harmony with ac- 
cepted educational principles. A black- 
board should never be made a work of art, 
so elaborate or ornate as to hold the atten- 
tion of the pupil to itself. Everything 
placed upon it should be regarded merely 


_-as a vehicle and continually tested by its 


fitness to secure this purpose. Simple 


_ drawings are the best. Such drawing and 
_ lettering as boys and girls are now taught 
in the public schools should qualify the 


average pupil to do the necessary black- 
board work. Incidentally this may prove 
a valuable means of self expression. 
Practical directions for the use of the 
board are the same for the Sunday school 
as for other schools. The teacher should 
know his work thoroughly before he be- 
gins, and be able to conduct the exercise 
clearly and promptly, with a degree of 
animation. ‘The main theme should be 
selected, and all minor elements left aside. 


_ Only such incidentals and details should 
_ be used as will strengthen the chosen les- 


gon. 


Use questions freely in order to 


_ draw out the story or the teaching from 
_ the pupils, especially if the blackboard is 
_ made use of for reviewing. It is better to 
_ begin with a vacant board and place the 
_ work upon it as it is evoked from the class. 
_ Erasing may also be done, a little at a 


time, so that the lesson ends with a clear 


_ board. The work should proceed to a 
_ climax and never stray from the road. 


K. S. Lewis. 
References : 
Bailey, H. T. The Blackboard in the 
Sunday School. (Boston, 1899.) 
Darnell, F. H. The Blackboard 
Class for Sunday School Teachers. 
_ (Boston, n. d.) 


145 


Blakeslee 


Pelt eThee H. Practical Blackboard 
Work. 


BLACKHAM, JOHN.—Srr BrotTHer- 
HOODS IN GREAT BRITAIN. 


BLAKESLEE, ERASTUS (1838-1908). 
—Founder of the Bible Study Union Les- 
sons (q. v.). Was born in Connecticut, 
and educated at Yale University, gained 
the rank of Brigadier-General during the 
Civil War, and after the war, for more 
than ten years, engaged in business in 
New Haven and Boston. 

In 1876, he decided to carry out the 
ambition of his boyhood and become a 
minister. Although he was now forty-one 
years of age, and was supporting a family, 
he gave up his business and entered An- 
dover Theological Seminary. He was 
graduated in 1879, and afterwards held 
important Congregational pastorates in 
Connecticut and Massachusetts. While 
engaged in this work, he became deeply 
dissatisfied with the Biblical instruction 
which young people were receiving in the 
Sunday school. Disconnected passages of 
Scripture were printed on leaflets, or in 
quarterlies and distributed among the 
pupils as the basis of desultory comments 
and discussion. Little attempt was made 
to teach the message of any Biblical writer 
as a whole, or the significance of any large 
period or movement in Biblical history. 
Mr. Blakeslee therefore prepared and 
printed for the young people of his 
church, a series of “outline studies, with 
written answer questions.” These were 
not only highly successful in his own Sun- 
day school, but were also used and warmly 
praised in neighboring churches. 

In 1892, Mr. Blakeslee resigned his 
pastorate (in Spencer, Mass.) and moved 
to Boston, where he established the new 
series of lessons on a business basis, or- 
ganizing the Bible Study Publishing 
Company. For many years he encoun- 
tered almost insuperable obstacles. He 
was bitterly opposed by the less progres- 
sive leaders in the Sunday-school world. 
Eventually, however, his efforts were 
crowned with complete success. The 
“Blakeslee Lessons,” which formed a Six 
Year course of connected and orderly 
Bible study, came into use in thousands 
of American Sunday schools, and also in 
many foreign countries. At the time of 


Blakeslee Lessons 


his death he was planning a new series of 
lessons, which was to provide graded les- 
son material for pupils of different ages. 
This plan was carried out after his death 
in the Completely Graded Series, which 
with the older Six Year Series is now 
published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. It 
is generally agreed that the competition 
of the “Blakeslee Lessons” was one of the 
leading factors which led to the publica- 
tion of the new International Graded Les- 
sons. Mr., Blakeslee must be ranked as 
one of the leading pioneers in the modern 
movement for higher efficiency in Sunday 
schools, and in the general field of reli- 
gious education. 
H. A. SHERMAN. 


BLAKESLEE LESSONS.—Sre BIsie 
Stupy Union Lessons. 


BOARD OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
—SEE COMMITTEE ON RELIGIous Epuca- 
TION; EpDUCATIONAL AGENCIES OF THE 
CHURCH, CORRELATION OF THE; ORGAN- 
IZATION, S. S. 


BOARD, THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.—SeEr 
COMMITTEE ON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 


BOOKS FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
LIBRARY, SELECTION OF.—Less than 
a century ago the typical volume for the 
Sunday-school library was a slender book- 
let describing the spiritual exercises of 
some preternaturally pious child. This 
child cared nothing for the amusements of 
other children, but continually bewailed 
his sinfulness, and generally died young. 

Gradually this booklet gave way to some 
unattractive volumes bound in marbled 
pasteboard. Their print was fine; their 
paragraphs lengthy. The subject matter 
was generally some biography or history, 
travels in the East, or the customs of the 
Jews. They often contained facts that 
would have been of interest to children; 
but in the presentation of these facts the 
authors had evidently not thought of 
adapting their narratives to young folks. 
There were the facts, and they were good 
facts, and if the reader were not interested 
in them, he was the loser. 

About 1870, the ideal Sunday-school 
book had become of a totally different cast. 
The tales of the pious children had van- 
ished; and the marbled volumes had been 


146 


Books for the Library 


in a great degree weeded out. Then began 
the reign of the distinctively sentimental 
story-book. History and biography had 
disappeared, and these new books were 
tales of boys and girls in their every day 
life. They were written with the hoped- 
for reader in mind, and with the convic- 
tion that if he were not interested he 
would not read them. The covers were at- 
tractive; the print was excellent; but they 
contained little information or direct in- 
struction, though a vast amount of reli- 
gious sentimentalism. This sentiment 
was introspective and had a tendency to 
develop self-consciousness; but the books 
were clean and sincere, and no one went 
far astray by yielding to their influence. 
As the years passed, a new and pressing 
question developed: How could the young 
folks be persuaded to go to Sunday school 
willingly ? 
ducements to secure their attendance was 
the proffer of interesting books. But 
these books must be up-to-date in contents 
and make-up. There was no attraction 
in biographies of child saints, or in se- 
dately presented information, or religious 
sentiment and introspection. Nothing of 


Among the most potent in- 


that sort would hold the attention of the 


fin de siécle young folks. There must be 
constant change and excitement. 
must be stories with thrilling plots, tales 
of adventure and discovery, exciting epi- 


There © 


sodes of warfare and exploration. Narra- 


tive which moved along quietly and simply 
had lost its charm. Many libraries be- 


came collections of books which could 


hardly be called pernicious, but which had 


small connection with the work and aims — 


of the Sunday school. The earnest teacher 


often expressed the wish that the teaching ~ 
of Sunday morning might be reinforced 
by the reading of Sunday afternoon; but 
it was hoped that if the boys and girls 
could be brought into the Sunday school 
by means of the library, the teaching 
would more than make up for any weak- 


ness in its contents. 


All devices eventually fail, when one 


more attractive is offered 


elsewhere. 


Public libraries flourished, and the chil-— 


dren began to ignore the Sunday-school 
library. They had “read all those” and 
they wanted a'wider choice. The interest 
of the young folks in the Sunday school 
flagged. 


“Chalk talks,” giving names to 


classes, and rivalry in various forms failed 





ee 





Books for the Library 


_ to hold them. Attendance at day school 


was a matter of business: there was ad- 
yantage in being present, and disadvan- 
tage in being absent. Attendance at Sun- 
day school was a matter of indifference. 


_A day’s presence gave apparently little 


gain, or a day’s absence caused little loss. 
Other interests increased, and many of 
the young folks preferred to make differ- 


ent use of their time. 


The Sunday school has never ceased to 
be the right hand of the church; but dur- 
ing the recent years there came to those 
who knew it best, and who were most 
faithful in its support, a new revelation 
of the power and ability that careful train- 
ing might develop in the Sunday school, 
and of the marvelous instrument for good 
that it might become under more skillful 
direction of the energies lavished upon it. 
Its most pressing need was a definite aim 
for the pupil. The teacher had ever a 
noble and practical aim—to prepare the 
children for a Christian life (see Teacher, 
Spiritual Aim of the)—but the pupil had 
been aimless. He came to Sunday school 
because of parental wishes, rewards, affec- 


_ tion for his teacher, or merely from the 


_ broken record of attendance. 


example of other children. The promised 
gift of a Bible would no longer induce the 
pupil to memorize numerous verses; and 
permission to wear a medal did not always 
seem an adequate recompense for an un- 
The child 
needed to realize that he was accomplish- 


_ Ing something; and to produce this reali- 
_ zation he needed to feel that his advance 





_ systematic 
_ school work of recent years has broadened 
and deepened. Its religious purpose has 
not weakened, but its doors have been 
_ opened to skilled methods of instruction. 


was marked by definite stages. This has 


_ now been brought about by grading the 


pupils, which is one of the most impor- 
tant steps that has ever been taken toward 
instruction. The Sunday- 


Because public libraries have become’so 


_ general, or perhaps because of the incon- 
_ gruity which was so evident between the 
classes of books in the Sunday-school li- 
 braries and the more scientific methods 


of religious instruction, many schools have 
abolished their libraries altogether. This 
is, of course, the easiest manner in which 
to dispose of the question, but the Sunday- 
school library has not outlived its useful- 
ness, though the field of its usefulness has 


147 


Books for the Library 


changed. Its function is no longer simply 
to provide “something to read.” Its in- 
fluence has become ennobled, its dignity 
has increased, and it is about to rise to 
its proper work; namely, to second the 
teaching of the classroom. The teaching 
of the Sunday school aims at unfolding 
a knowledge of God and his truth. (See 
Religious Education, Aims of.) The aim 
of the library should be to show God in 
the world of human action and of nature; 
to illustrate the principles of religion 
entering into every day life; to impress 
and interpret their practical workings, 
and always to do this in a manner adapted 
to the taste and capacity of young folks. 

There are two pressing questions in 
regard to the Sunday-school library. 
First, “What sort of book shall be ad- 
mitted to it?” Second, “How may chil- 
dren be aided in choosing from these 
books, and so get the utmost advantage 
from them ?” 

The story is the natural literary food of 
the child, and a library for children 
should contain a generous proportion of 
stories. The story-book, like all the other 
books of the library, should be well- 
written, well-printed, and attractively 
bound and illustrated. The test of a story 
is its atmosphere, its moral values, the 
feelings and impressions which it leaves 
in the mind of the reader, and the habits 
of thought it helps to form. The book 
may say little about technical religion; in 
Inttle Women, for instance, the sentences 
about religious matters are few; but a 
love of what is right is the atmosphere of 
the simple home life that is herein pic- 
tured. The reader closes the book with 
the feeling that he has been with people 
whose standards are high, and who would 
not have been nearly such good compan- 
ions if their standards had been lower. 
The book of the misunderstood child, and 
of the child who bears patiently with its 
parents, and convinces them of their reli- 
gious inferiority, have shown signs of 
waning influence, but their morbid power 
over. the young reader lessens as he grows 
older. One kind of story, however, is far 
more pernicious than this because its in- 
fluence does not pass, but increases and 
strengthens—the tale of cheap smartness, 
the narrative wherein the hero succeeds, 
not by honest effort and ability, but by 
getting the better of someone else, and 


Books for the Library 


often by some sharp dealing which would 
not, indeed, send him to prison, but which 
could never be mistaken for the act of a 
thoroughly honorable man. Men win 
some kinds of success by trickery and dis- 
honesty; but if the author does not make 
it clear that they have lost more than they 
have gained, the book is not true to life, 
and it has no right to a place on the 
shelves of the Sunday-school library. 

Children always like to read about real 
people who did real things. The public li- 
braries record that it is impossible to find 
enough simple, interesting biographies to 
meet the demands of their younger read- 
ers. Children love a hero. Great wisdom, 
however, must be exercised in choosing the 
heroes who are to win the hearts and be- 
come the models of these young people. 
Show them that even a person who meets 
danger, and hardship, and opposition, is 
not a hero unless he has a lofty motive; 
that no act, however daring, is heroic un- 
less it is prompted by an heroic motive. 
Teach them that to undertake spectacular 
deeds of daring is not heroic, but is merely 
venturesome; but to risk one’s life on 
the stormy coasts of Labrador, or else- 
where, in order to bring healing and com- 
fort to those who are in need is truly 
heroic. It is not enough that the choice 
of the hero shall be a wise one; children 
are the keenest of critics, and they require 
more than that a biography shall be ac- 
curate and well-written, they demand that 
from beginning to end it shall be so hu- 
man as to connect with their own small 
human experiences. Most biographies in- 
terest them at the beginning, because the 
hero is playing, going to school, meeting 
slight mishaps and winning little victories 
—things which children can understand 
and can relate sympathetically with their 
own lives. But it is the last chapters that 
test the tale. Children like to feel that 
their heroes are “only boys grown tall”; 
and if the man about whom they are read- 
ing no longer likes and dislikes, and works 
and struggles, makes mistakes and is sorry 
for them—if he has apparently passed out 
of real life, and ceased to be more than 
an illustration of success, the book will not 
hold its young readers to the end, and its 
impression will be vague and imperfect. 
The last chapters form the test. 

So it is with history. In the history of 
_ the United States, for instance, the life of 


148 


“ey 
he 
| 


4 


Books for the Library | 


colonial days is of necessity simple, it is 
easily and interestingly described, and 
children enjoy reading about it. But turn 
over the pages and see how the later years 
are treated. The story of the making of 
the Constitution, of the invention of the 
telegraph, and the digging of the Erie 
Canal, may be as simply and interestingly 
presented as the landing of the Pilgrims; 
and if they are not so presented, the book 
will be begun, then laid aside and labeled 
“dull”—and “dull” simply means that it 
does not connect with the reader’s expe- 
riences. Perhaps in the majority of his- 
tories too much attention has been paid 
to warfare, and the proportion is not well 
kept; but so far as any possible brutaliz- 
ing influence is concerned, far more bellig- 
erent feelings are aroused by looking on at 
a street fight than by reading the most 
thrilling account of a battle. 

Books of travel should find generous 
space, but they should be written by those 
rare travelers to whom all things are fresh, 
and new, and entertaining. The person 
who is more interested in himself and the 
petty imconveniences of travel than in 
what he is seeing around him can never 
write a worthy book concerning his 
journeyings. ‘There must be books about 
invention and discovery ; but so far as pos- 
sible choice should be made of the men 
who have recognized the fact that their 
unusual abilities were gifts for whose good 
use they were responsible. Formerly 
there was a feeling that books of adven- 
ture should not be admitted to the Sun- 
day-school library; but if the adventure is 
undertaken for a worthy object, is true to 
life, and is well-written, it should have 
place. It is entirely possible for a book 
not to mention religion from its begin- 
ning to its end, and yet to be so imbued 
with the spirit of self-sacrifice and kind- 
ness, of courage and devotion to a worthy 
cause, as to be essentially Christian in its 
influence and effect. 

There should be books about animals, 
books written by those who love them, and 
who can describe not only their character- 
istics and ways of living, but can arouse a 
fellow feeling for them, and a realization 
of the cowardliness of tormenting a 
creature that is helpless to defend itself. 
Milton said that his object in writing 
Paradise Lost was “to justify the ways of 
God to men.” The object of the Sunday- 


Be 


5 


‘distinction between the two? 


Books for the Library 


school library should be to reveal the ways 


of God to children—his ways in plants 
and rocks and stars, in clouds and waves 
and mountains and tempests—whether 
this is expressed by naturalist, or novelist, 
or historian, or poet. 

There are, indeed, very few classes of 
books which may not find worthy admit- 
tance to a Sunday-school library. The 
test is not, “T’o what class does the book 
belong?” but rather, “What will be its 
influence?” There is room for good fic- 
tion, historical or otherwise, for books 
that tell “how to do things,” for clean love 
stories, provided they present ennobling 
ideals and are honest and sincere, and 
there is always room for poetry, provided 
the children are helped to understand and 
appreciate it. (See Literature, Moral 
and Religious Education through.) 

If the Sunday-school library is to con- 

tain books of so many of the classes ad- 
mitted to the public library, what is the 
On the 
surface there is very little difference; but 
in reality there is a vast amount. The 
secular library may be more or less neg- 
ative in its excellence; but that of the 
Sunday-school library must be positive. 
The secular library may admit any book 
that is not injurious; the Sunday-school 
library must admit no book that is not dis- 
tinctly helpful. It must refuse to accept 
a volume, however interesting or popular, 
unless it can give a reason for its admit- 
tance. The book must be such that it will 
influence its readers for good, or it should 
have no place on the shelves of the Sun- 
day-school library. 
It is evident that a great responsibility 
rests upon those who select the books. It 
would be a good plan if, under the title 
of every volume accepted, some member of 
the committee should write over his own 
signature, “I have chosen this book be- 
cause...” Let the young folks feel that 
it is their library. Encourage them to 
bring their favorite books for the com- 
mittee to examine and add to the collec- 
tion if they are approved. Teach the chil- 
dren that it is an honor to have a book 
accepted. | 

After a good selection of books has 
been made, much must be done by both 
librarian and teachers to bring the right 


book to the right child at the psycholog- 


ical moment. The librarian must of 


149 


Borromeo 


course know the library, and must be a 
person of tact and intelligence. He must 
know what is going on in the classes, and 
may suggest or recommend books to teach- 
ers and pupils, or post a list of books of 
immediate interest. From time to time 
he may issue a leaflet, or give a short talk 
on new books, or concerning valuable ones 
which, from some lack of attractiveness in 
print, or illustration, or binding, have 
been overlooked. (See Librarian, S. S.) 

It is the teacher, however, who comes 
nearest to the pupils. If he can say, “This 
lesson about the leadership of Moses re- 
minds me of Washington leading the 
colonies to freedom”; or, “The story of 
the Exodus calls to mind the sailing of 
the Pilgrims in the Mayflower’ ; or, “Here 
is a book of travel and adventure in the 
country which we are studying,” and can 
produce the volume and read just enough 
to arouse a desire to know what follows, 
some members of the class will be sure to 
want to carry these books home to finish, 
and one story that a child has read of his 
own volition is worth a score of those to 
which he has passively listened. After 
the majority of a class have read a certain 
book, it is worth while to spend a few min- 
utes in discussing it—but the pupils 
themselves must be led on to do most of 
the talking. Absolutely perfect books are 
no more common than perfect people; but 
by emphasizing the good features of books 
the teacher can do much to cause the 
bad points to be forgotten. 

The Sunday-school library has not out- 
lived its usefulness, but it must be well- 
chosen and well-managed. (See Library, 
S. 8.) It is not merely a place from 
which to get something to read; it is not a 
bribe to secure attendance at the Sunday 
school; it is a tool with which to do valu- 
able work; it is a weapon of defense 
against worthless reading; and it should 
afford sturdy and practical service to 
morality, good citizenship, and religion. 
(See Appendix: Typical 8. 8. Library.) 

Eva M. Tappan. 

Reference: 

Field, W. T. Fingerposts to Chil- 
dren’s Reading. (Chicago, 1911c07.) 


BORROMEO, CARLO (1538-84).— 
Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, was 
the nephew of Pope Pius IV, and may be 
considered as the first to systematize Sun- 


~ 


Borromeo 


day schools. He was a man of altogether 
remarkable powers, saintly in his char- 
acter and apostolic in his labors. At the 
early age of twenty-six he was made arch- 
bishop, and became one of the reformers 
within the church. He did more than any 
other individual to awaken the churches 
of Italy to an active religious life, and was 
unwearying in his care for the poor and 
the suffering, remaining at his post at the 
time of the plague, and winning the love 
of the people by his devotion, and visita- 
tion, and attention to the sick. Especially 
was he interested in the religious training 
of children. Cardinal Borromeo superin- 
tended the preparation of the Council of 
Trent’s Catechisms, and through his in- 
fluence, the synod decreed that all Roman 
Catholic clergy should bring the children 
of the parish together on Sunday for 
catechizing. This decree was obeyed to 
the full in the Cathedral of Milan; but 
here Borromeo went further and organ- 
ized a staff of teachers who had in their 
care groups of children, meeting in the 
cathedral on Sunday afternoons. He 
grouped the boys on one side and the girls 
on the other, and subdivided them into 
classes. 

Kach class was superintended by a 
priest who was assisted by lay helpers. 
The curriculum included instruction in 
the arts of reading and writing, as well as 
religious knowledge. 

In the dioceses of Milan there were over 
850 parishes and the good cardinal organ- 
ized with such effect that at his death 
there were duly reported in Italy 740 
schools, 273 superintendent officers, 1,726 
helpers, and 40,098 pupils. The institu- 
tions founded by Borromeo did not pass 
beyond Milan and its vicinity; or he 
might have been considered the founder 
of the Sunday-school system. A London 
clergyman visiting Milan in 1823, found 
that the methods of Borromeo were still 
in vogue, the children meeting in classes 
of ten or twenty, arranged between the 
pillars of the cathedral, separated by cur- 
tains. 

In other city churches the plan was car- 
ried out under the charge of the priest. 
The names of the pupils were painted 
upon boards, each pupil having a desk 
with Borromeo’s motto “Humilitas” upon 
it. By attending the school each pupil 
became a member of a fraternity purchas- 


150 


a | 


Boston Society 


ing indulgences for sins, granted by the 
Pope in 1609. 


Reference : 

Thompson, E. H. ed. The Life of 
St. Charles Borromeo. Newed. (Lon- 
don, 1893.) 


BOSTON CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL. 
—Sre BrisrticaL INstruction By Cor- 
RESPONDENCE. 


BOSTON SOCIETY FOR THE MORAL 
AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF 
THE POOR.—This organization was 
founded October 9, 1816, and in 1820 it 
was incorporated by a special act of the 
legislature. The funds of the Society 
were obtained from miscellaneous con- 
tributions, subscriptions, and bequests, 

The suggestion of the need of such 
a society resulted from the visit of the 
Rev. Ward Stafford of New York, who 
told of the ignorance of the poor of that 
city, of their destitution of religious in- 
struction, and of the lack of Bibles among 
them. Inquiry and visitation revealed 
similar conditions among the poor of 
Boston, and for their moral and religious 
improvement this Society was organized. 

The Society’s first plan was to open 
day schools on the Lancastrian system of 
instruction in codperation with the public- 


Carry BONNER, 


school authorities, but insufficiency of 


funds prevented this. However, in 1817 


| 


the Society established Sunday schools in — 


the Mason street and School street town 
school houses, where it held morning and 
afternoon sessions. The opening and 
closing services of the schools included 
prayer and the singing of a hymn. It 
was said of these institutions that “every 


school is, In some sense, a@ missionary 


establishment.” 

Children under seven years of age were 
not admitted to the town schools, and 
over seven only if they were able to read 
reasonably well, without spelling. The 
parents of many of the poor children were 
unable, or else neglected, to teach them, 
and the children roamed the streets and 
became a menace to the public. The 
Sunday schools of the “Boston Society” 
received children from five years of age 
and upward, taught them to read and 
spell and thus prepared them to enter the 
public schools. The textbooks were the 
Bible, the catechisms, and Cummings’ 


Bourne 


questions on the New Testament. The 
pupils committed to memory many 
prayers, and thousands of verses of Scrip- 
ture and hymns. In both of the first 
schools “tickets for punctual attendance, 
and certificates of merit” were used. 

For twelve years the chief work of the 

Society was devoted to Sunday-school 
instruction of both white and colored chil- 
dren and adults, and in all, seventeen 
schools were established under its auspices. 
Within a few years the Society was in- 
strumental in securing the opening of 
primary schools as a part of the public 
school system of Boston. Besides their 
work in the Sunday-school field, the So- 
ciety directed special efforts toward the 
betterment of seamen, which resulted a 
few years later in the organization of the 
“Boston Seaman’s Friend Society.” Def- 
inite reformative work was done among 
abandoned women, in jails and hospitals, 
and attention was given to general city 
evangelism, 
_ In 1829 the care of the Society’s Sun- 
day schools was given over to the Massa~ 
chusetts branch of the American Sunday 
School Union. As the “Boston Society 
for the Moral and Religious Instruction 
of the Poor” had been incorporated for 
certain lines of work, it could not engage 
“in other specific work without its name 
being changed, and this could not be done 
without an enactment of the legislature. 
The Board, therefore, recommended the 
formation of a new society to become 
auxiliary to the Massachusetts Mission- 
ary Society. In 1834 the last report was 
issued under the original name of the 
Society. 

The Board continued its missionary 
work connected with “the moral and reli- 
gious good of the poor”—charity infant 
schools, pauperism, etc—until 1841, 
“when under the name of the City Mis- 
sionary Society it began a new career.” 

Emity J. FELu. 

BOURNE, HUGH—Serre Primitive 

Metuopist 8. S. Union. 


BOURNEVILLE SUNDAY SCHOOL.— 
Sse Traintna Institute For S. S. 
Workers, WESTHILL, SELLY Oak. 


BOY, THE.—Srre ADOLESCENCE AND 
Its SIGNIFICANCE; Boy, THE City; Boy, 


151 


Boy, The City 


THE OLDER; Boy, THE PROBLEM OF 
TRAINING THE; Boys AND GrRLs, Com- 
MUNITY ORGANIZATIONS FoR; Boys, 
Country; Boys, MEN TEACHERS FOR; 
FEDERATED Boys’ Ciuss; Nerwspoys’ 
ASSOCIATION, NATIONAL. 


BOY, THE CITY.—In approaching a 
study of the life of a boy in the city, con- 
sideration must be given to his surround- 
ings. The contest for the possession of the 
boy’s life is constantly waged between the 
forces whose influence is positive and con- 
structive and those whose effect is nega- 
tive and destructive. 

One who is familiar with boy life is 
instinctively aware of these conflicting 
influences upon entering a community 
for the first time, and is able to judge 
whether the boy in that particular neigh- 
borhood faces a moral problem whose‘ 
elements are simple or complex. 

Among those forces which are alto- 
gether negative are: the saloon, the 
brothel, the gambling place, many public 
dance halls, many pool rooms, many cigar 
stores, many summer parks. 

The church, the school, the Young 
Men’s Christian Association or other 
properly supervised boys’ club, the public 
library, the supervised playground are all 
forces which exert a positive and con- 
structive influence. ' 

Among the agencies which are of funda- 
mental importance, but which cannot be 
classified, is the home; though some homes 
are exceedingly destructive in their moral 
influence, many more are bulwarks of 
safety to the growing boy. 

Given a normal, active city boy, one 
may not be able to pass an infallible judg- 
ment regarding his moral life. The 
trained observer, however, will seek some 
definite information along certain lines 
before making his estimate. 

The Boy’s Home Life. It is important 
to know whether it is simply a place of 
residence, or a real home; what the chief 
interests of the home are, and what kind 
of parents the boy has; whether the boy 
has any definite financial responsibility 
toward maintaining the home, or in any 
other way shares in its burdens. 

The Boy’s Father. Some of the most 
significant factors in the life of a boy 
are the sympathy, understanding, confi- 
dence, and comradeship which can be 


Boy, The City 


established between the father and his son. 
If the father ignores or misinterprets 
the responsibilities of fatherhood the 
boy may sometimes find the needed help 
in the friendship of an older boy who is a 
Christian, or in the teacher of his Sun- 
day-school class. (See The Father’s Re- 
sponsibility in the Education of his Chil- 
dren.) 

The Boy’s Leisure Time. According to 
whether the boy is employed, or goes to 
school during the day, from one-fourth 
to one-half of his time is unaccounted 
for. How this time is spent will reveal 
the boy’s moral character. The inter- 
ests that engage his attention when he is 
free from the restraint of school or busi- 
ness, not only indicate the type of boy he 
is, but determine the kind of a man into 
which he will grow. It is during these 
hours of leisure that the whole range of 
the forces of evil contend for possession 
of the boy’s life. If the boy is at work, 
he has the evenings and Sunday at his dis- 
posal, and in the “open-Sunday” city the 
day is often the open door to hell itself 
to many a young life. Questions in re- 
gard to where the boy works, and under 
what conditions, are vital ones. Does 
his work-life bring him into daily contact 
with real men and women? Are his em- 
ployer, his fellow-workmen, and the girls 
with whom he is associated during busi- 
ness hours exerting influences for good or 
for evil? 

It is possible for the forces of good and 
evil to be measured; and, in some degree 
at least, the balance may be obtained be- 
tween helpful or positive forces and neg- 
ative ones which are to be resisted and 
overcome. 

In what way does city life in itself 
render more difficult the problem of pro- 
ducing clean manhood from normal boy- 
hood? The more highly developed the 
city life becomes the less responsibility 
the boy is required to assume in the home, 
and consequently his leisure time is in- 
creased. For instance, in a modern city 
apartment or flat of the well-to-do class, 
every service is done for the family. The 
boy is robbed of the privilege of doing the 
family errands and there is little or 
nothing worth while with which to em- 
ploy his natural energies, unless his par- 
ents are wise enough to provide tasks for 
him. 


152 


q 


¥ 
i 
“| 


Boy, The City 


Then the value of clothes is more dis- 
tinctly regarded. He must be dressed 
in a certain acceptable style, or be con-. 
sidered peculiar. If his parents cannot 
afford to dress him in the manner pre- 
vailing among his schoolmates, he may 
grow self-conscious and quit school in con- 
sequence. ‘Then he becomes lost in the 
crowd, and when tempted to vicious prac- 
tices he may yield, and for a period at 
least be comparatively free from discoy- 
ery. The city boy meets commercialized 
recreation and amusement in its most 
seductive forms, and it is not easily ap- 
parent to him that such commercializa- 
tion does not compute the cost in human 
souls. The element of extravagant living 
also seriously enters into the problem. 

On the other hand, there is a construc- 
tive side to city life. Sometimes in a 
smaller community waves of moral de- 
crepitude sweep over whole groups of 
boys, and nearly all are carried under by 
the force of the stroke. This seldom 
happens in the city, even though vicious 
conditions rise and fall in wave-like mo- 
tion. The city boy has a larger freedom 
in choosing his companions, because he 
may be, in a sense, more isolated and 
have greater opportunity to follow his 
own inclinations and to express his own 
personality in the choices of recreation 
and the use of his leisure time. : 

The boy can be won for righteousness 
against the odds of city life, and many are 
being won. The church is holding the 
city boy as never before—especially up 
to the.age of seventeen. The fight is now 
being made for the older boy who is from 
seventeen to twenty-one. But the church 
and its related agencies are meeting the 
issues in this respect as well as along other 
lines. The educational systems are begin- 
ning to take cognizance of the boys, and 
to provide instruction for them as indi- 
viduals. ‘The technical high schools, the 
continuation schools, and the apprentice 
schools within individual industries, are 
making fine contributions to boy life by 
providing education along general and 
specific lines. Thus, it is not only pos- 
sible for the boy to increase in technical 
knowledge and business efficiency, but to. 
gain moral fiber by adding to his self- 
respect and enabling him to gain a broader 
and more wholesome outlook upon life 
itself. ‘ 


a 
“y 
4 


Boy, The City 153 Boy, The Older 


The law is intercepting delinquent boys 
before they reach the courts instead of 
waiting for the misstep which shall bring 
them before the judge’s bench. (See 
Juvenile Court.) The playground and 
‘school social center are contributing to the 
normal play life. The Young Men’s 
Christian Association (q. v.), the Boy 
) Scouts (q. v.), and other organizations are 
the means of building character in thou- 
sands of boys. 
| How is the Sunday school related to 
the problems which confront the city boy? 
For any boy, country or city, there is no 
finer ideal than to grow as the boy Jesus 
rew—‘“in wisdom, in stature, and in 
favor with God and man.” To reach com- 
plete manhood, the boy must grow in a 
threefold respect—fentally, physically, 
and spiritually. The work of the Sunday 
‘school is to supplement the home training 
in religion, thus supplying what would 
‘otherwise be lacking in the boy’s life. 
_ The Sunday school may not always be 
able to supply properly that which the 
‘boy needs for physical growth; but may 
help to supply it, and may do a real 
service by holding up the ideals of a well- 
‘rounded physical development. In one or 
‘more of the following ways Sunday schools 
are doing real service along these lines: 
(1) By maintaining a properly equipped, 
wisely supervised gymnasium and social 
-eenter in connection with the church; (2) 
by utilizing even inadequate facilities for 
|Baysical work under adequate supervision ; 
(3) by providing facilities for outdoor 
‘sports, which also should be supervised ; 
(4) by providing supervision for outdoor 
sports even where special facilities are im- 
possible; (5) by combining to furnish 
properly supervised contests in basket-ball 
and baseball, as is done in a Sunday 
School League; (6) by turning the atten- 
tion of Christian young men to the oppor- 
tunities for service in this field of boy 
leadership ; (7) and by seeing that these 
young men are trained for such service. 
| (See Athletic Leagues, S. S.; Gymna- 
‘siums, Church. ) 

The aim of the Sunday school should 
be to train the boy in such a manner that 
his mental vision shall not be limited by 
‘Materialism. Life in the city suggests 
to him that everything is to be tested by 
its money value. Sunday-school leaders 
‘should teach him by example and precept 








that there are values which cannot be 
estimated by such standards. In such a 
great task the character and personality 
of Sunday-school teachers have a very im- 
portant determining influence. 

The matter of cultivating right rela- 
tionship with God and man is coming to 
be the Sunday school’s newest, most pa- 
tent responsibility and greatest opportu- 
nity. Schools are making systematic and 
intelligent efforts to win the boys to Christ 
and to the church, and after being won, 
they are providing real work for the boys. 
Service, the giving of self and every pos- 
session, as opposed to being served and 
getting, is being widely emphasized. It 
cannot fail to appeal to the older boy, for 
something divinely implanted within his 
heart, the altruistic impulse, responds. 
(See Boy, The Older; Boy, The Problem 
of Training the; ; Boys, Country.) 

KE. C. Foster. 


BOY, THE OLDER.—This boy is on the 
way, so we cannot describe him as being 
in one fixed state with reference to his 
development. Being all the time some- 
where on the way between childhood and 
manhood, it is impossible accurately to 
describe the older boy while he is between 
fifteen and eighteen years of age. A 
description which would be correct when 
he is fifteen will not properly character- 
ize him when he reaches the age of seven- 
teen. 

Take the question of control or govern- 
ment. Should older boys have an auto- 
cratic or democratic form of government? 


. Should they be controlled by some one 


wiser than they, or should they have self- 
government? Obviously the answer can- 
not be either yes or no. It is clear that 
a little child must have external control, 
or government, but as a man he must have 
internal control, ‘or self-government. 
During youth there should be a sloughing 
off of the external control as the powers 
of self-control are developed. Indeed, 
there must be a casting off of external con- 
trol in order to give the powers of self- 
control an opportunity to develop. 

Should a Sunday-school class or church . 
club of older boys have complete and abso- 


lute self-government without any sugges- 


tions from adults? The answer of course 
is “no.” Should this class of older boys 
have no self-government, but depend en- 


Boy, The Older 


tirely upon adults for leadership and guid- 
ance? Again the answer must be in the 
negative. In order to determine where 
the older boy is, and how we shall adapt 
our work to meet his needs, it should be 
remembered that the power that is coming 
must have the right of way over the power 
that is going. Self-control, though very 
feeble at first, is in the ascendancy. Ex- 
ternal control, though bulking large at the 
time, is on the decline. Therefore, every 
Sunday-school group or church club of 
older boys should have such a measure of 
self-government as its members can bear. 
They should be encouraged to desire self- 
government, and they should understand 
that the external control exerted is in the 
interest of assisting them to develop their 
own initiative and resources. Every wise 
leader of older boys should realize that his 
guidance must decrease in order that their 
self-control may increase; but he should 
not withdraw his control before their 
power of self-government is sufficiently 
strong. 

The leader should appreciate the fact 
that his own rate of growth is very much 
less than that of the older boy, and he 
should accustom himself to the thought 
that there must be constant development 
and constant change, and that within a 
twelvemonth the methods now well 
adapted will be no longer suitable. 

It is a great day for a group of older 
boys when they gain the realization that 
they can have all the power, self-control, 
self-government which they are capable of 
using; that their leader desires them to 
have it; and the only reason that any ex- 
ternal control is exercised is that they 
have not yet completely developed the 
power to govern themselves. 

It is also a notable day for the leader 
when he finds that his confidence in the 
boys has not been misplaced and that they 
have acquired the ability of self-govern- 
ment. It may be a misfortune to allow 
them too much self-government before 
they can use it properly, but it is a graver 
error to withhold self-government when 
the boys are ready for it. The reason that 
many men do not possess a larger measure 
of internal or self-control is because 
through the years of youth they were not 
trained in the habit of this virtue. One 
scientist suggests that we must fasten the 
habit to the instinct when the instinct ap- 


154 


7 


Boy, The Older 


pears, and that we cannot do so sooner, 
nor can it be done later. If the habit of 
self-control is established during the 
periods of childhood and boyhood, it be- 
comes a part of the boy’s equipment for 
manhood. If, however, the exercise of 
self-government is denied the boy when 
the impulse and desire come to him, it is 
probable that he will need external con- 
trol and government for the remainder of 
his life. 

The older boy is on the way between the 
egoist and the altruist. As a little child 
his viewpoint is individualistic, and he 
plays the games in which he is it, and he 
wins. As a man his viewpoint should be 
social or altruistic, and he should play the 
team game in which the side wins, where 
the individual must make the sacrifice 
play in order that the side may win. The 
wish to be 1 may persist, but it is vanish- 
ing. Though the desire to sacrifice him- 
self for others may not be conspicuous in 
the boy, it is nevertheless there, and only 
needs developing. Boys in their teens do 
not perform acts of bravery because they 
have stopped to think it out as something 
desirable, but they act from impulse—to 
attempt to save another at a personal cost 
is a perfectly normal and natural instinct 
of the adolescent boy. If this impulse is 
not developed then it may never unfold in 
later life. The habit of altruism must 
grow out of the instinct of altruism when 
it appears in the boy. 

It is not difficult to bring the older boy 
to see that all the vices result from weak- 
ness of character—not from strength of 
character ; nor to cause the boy of the high 
school age to see that cowardice—where 
the individual sacrifices the larger issue 
in order to save himself—is the child’s 
game, and not the action of a man. The 
boy can observe from the business world 
that the man who objects to city improve- 
ments because his taxes will be raised, or 
the man who builds unsanitary tenements 
where people contract disease, but from 
which he collects exorbitant rents, is still 
playing the old, individualistic game of 
childhood in which he is it, and in which 
he wins while the larger cause loses. So 
with intemperance or any form of im- 
morality. The older boy or young man 
who, for the temporary gratification of his” 
own tastes and desires, brings distress and - 
sorrow into the lives of others is still play- 


| Boy, Training the 





ing the game of the child, and not that 


of a man. 
Older boys will sacrifice themselves for 


_ others under right leadership and sugges- 


tion. Self-sacrifice is a natural instinct 
which expresses itself in team loyalty, 
class loyalty, loyalty to some cause, and 


_ which may be developed into a lifelong 
habit. Applied to religion this means that 


the little boy who is individualistic in all 


_ of his ideas and impulses is so in his faith 


and worship—he is interested in the salva- 


tion of his own soul. The older boy who 


has outgrown the earlier individualistic 
impulse, and who has measurably devel- 
oped the social instinct, finds that his reli- 


_ gion is expressed in helping some one else 
as well as in thinking of himself. Unless 


the older boy is guided into active service 


_ for others along religious lines his prog- 
Tess and growth from egoism to altruism 
will be seriously hindered, if it is not 


checked altogether. The boy may be well 


_ advanced into the teen age and still show 
_ few, if any, indications of altruism. The 


some one to kindle it into a flame. 


native spark was there, and it only needed 
It is 
a disaster if the spark smolders through 
youth and expires when manhood is 
reached. 

It is fundamental for the leader to bear 
in mind that the older boys are in a state 


_ of transition, and the methods of dealing 
_ with them must be adapted to the varia- 
tions in growth incident to their unfold- 
ing life. This does not imply a vacillat- 
Ing purpose in dealing with the boys, but 
close observation of boy life and sym- 
_ pathetic adaptation of methods to chang- 


_ ing needs. 


a 


E. M. Rosinson. 


BOY, THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING 
THE.—The whole boy goes to Sunday 
school. In the Sunday school are boys in 
all the different grades of development, 
boys from different circumstances in life, 


and boys who are in special danger periods. 


The fact that the boys are in all stages 


of development makes the problem of 


y 


{ 


; 


_ their training as varied as the stages there 


Tepresented. In the Sunday school are 
little boys who are lively, but as docile as 
little girls. There are noisy boys with 
little sense of order and reverence, and 


older boys with their special physical 


- needs and desires. 


(See Boy, The Older.) 
There are boys in every stage of mental 


155 


Boy, Training the 


development—from the age of the fairy 
story to the age of chivalry. The boys are 
in every social stage—from the individ- 
ualism of the savage to the self-sacrifice 
represented in the team play of adult 
games. Moreover, the boys are in every 
stage of development religiously. As the 
report of boys’ work for the Men and Reli- 
gion Forward Movement suggests, the boy 
under twelve who wades, the youth who 
swims, the man who sails are all to be 
found in the Sunday school. 

It is important to note that boys differ 
materially from girls during every year 
of their development beyond the eighth 
year, and therefore, demand different and 
separate treatment, especially at the begin- 
ning of adolescence. (See Adolescence 
and its Significance.) Girls mature phys- 
ically and mentally faster than do boys. 
The two sexes do not share the same inter- 
ests, and they cannot be wisely treated 
alike, nor together. Before boys leave the 
Primary Department of the Sunday school 
they manifest a more exuberant physical 
activity. This continues until they enter 
the Senior Department. A study made 
some years ago of the social organizations 
of boys, compared with those of girls, 
showed that over eighty per cent of the 
organizations, spontaneously made, by 
boys between ten and seventeen years of 
age, were for physical activities, while 
only ten per cent of such organizations by 
girls were for such purposes. It is notice- 
able in a church gymnasium that not half 
so many girls utilize the gymnasium as 
boys, even at the period when it is most 
popular with girls. The sex-life of boys 
is from the beginning more full of stress 
and strain than that of girls, and continu- 
ally involves, if not more important, cer- 
tainly more difficult problems. Boys do 
not organize “gangs” any more than girls 
do their “sets,” but the organizations of 
boys differ, not only in respect to physical 
activities, but in every other respect in 
the degree of emphasis, from those of girls 
at their age. The response of boys to reli- 
gion beyond the years of the Primary De- 
partment is considerably different from 
that of girls. Girls are apparently more 
sensitive in this respect to suggestion than 
are boys, and are more likely than boys to 
make a religious committal in a public 
meeting. Perhaps the most distinctive 
fact of a boy’s religion is that pointed out 


{ 


Boy, Training the 156 Boy, Training the 


by Dr. Allan Hoben, when he says that wholesome interests and activities that 


“As he experiences conversion the battle 
is usually waged about some concrete 
moral problem.” Those who have taught 
both adolescent boys and girls recognize 
how much more intent and honest are the 
answers to questions made by boys than 
by girls. Girls seem to be feeling for the 
answer which the teacher wants, while 
boys are more apt to say what they think. 
This indicates that adolescent boys are 
more independent in thought, and are 
also more subject to doubt than are girls. 
The problem of training the boy is 
further complicated by the fact that we 
deal with boys from different circum- 
stances in life. Whether or not a boy has 
living parents, there is all the difference 
in the world between having a home and 
being homeless. Parents of course differ 
widely as to their personal interests in, 
and watchfulness over, the habits and con- 
duct of their sons. But the difference in 
religious susceptibility and response be- 
tween a boy who has a religious heritage 
and one who has not is often startling. 
The problem of training the city boy 
differs materially from that of training 
the boy in the country. In the country 
the nature of the problem is determined 
by the isolation, dreariness and lack of 
attention to the social and recreational 
needs of both boys and girls. In the city 
the problem is most baffling on the side of 
street life, glittering temptations, hurry, 
and distraction. (See Boy, The City; 
Boys, Country.) The International 
Y. M. C. A., through developing the 
country secretaryship has attempted to 
provide for the social and religious life of 
the farm boys of an entire county. (See 
The Y. M. C. A. and the S. 8.) The 
report of the Rural Life Commission and 
other studies of country life have empha- 
sized the function of the country min- 
ister, especially in his relation to boys and 
girls. The opportunity for natural con- 
tact between an interested minister and 
the boys of the community after school, 
at the country festivals, and in the winter 
through boys’ clubs, make-shift gym- 
nasiums, and literary, social and musical 
societies, is invaluable and strategic. In 
the city the problem is rather to restore 
some of the more normal conditions of 
country life, to supplement the city home, 
and to fill the lives of children so full of 


these shall protect them against city dis- 
tractions and temptations. 

The Sunday school also often has to 
meet the problem of dealing with boys in 
varying financial circumstances. While 
there is not so much open snobbery among 
boys as among girls, there is real difficulty 
in dealing in the same place with the boy 
who rides in an automobile, and the one 
who goes on foot; with the one who be- 
comes a member of an expensive high 
school fraternity, and the one who has to 
leave school to wosk for his living. No 
doubt physical prowess is the great ley- 
eler of boys, and the teacher is wise and 
fortunate who can appeal to this native 
interest and bring it to expression, either 
in the Boy Scouts (q. v.), or the church 
gymnasium, or in the summer camp. 
(See Camps, Church; Gymnasiums, 
Church.) 

The boy problem is accentuated at spe- 
cial danger periods in boys’ lives. These 
periods are the adolescent years, in which 
both great temptations occur and the great 
moral resources develop. Early adoles- 
cence is peculiarly the time of excitement 
and love of pleasure. The teacher deals 
with boys who are tempted to live a life 
of continual play and sport, who desire 
luxuries which they cannot afford, who 
join social organizations that are not good 
for them. Sometimes these tendencies are 
entirely neglected or are even fostered by 
indulgent parents, and when they become 
contagious in a community the teacher 
finds himself confronting a most difficult 
social situation. These are also the years 
of foolish choices, choices of worthless 
chums or girl friends, choices of idle ways 
of spending money, choices of profitless 
and “blind-alley” vocations. | 

The most important factor in the train- 
ing of the boy in the Sunday school is the 
Sunday-school teacher. (See Teacher, 
S. 8., Personality and Character of the.) 
What Dr. C. J. Little said of public school 
teaching, is equally true of Sunday-school 
teaching: “The educational problem of 
every century is to find the school-master, 
not to found the school.” The report of 
the Men and Religion Forward Movement 
states that at least ninety per cent of the 
solution of the boy problem exists in the 
teacher. Until the close of the Primary 
years boys are usually and successfully 


Boy, Training the 


taught by women. Some time during the 
Junior grade they begin to respond better 
to men. It is fair to say that, with some 
extraordinary exceptions, the ideal should 
be that every boy beyond the Junior De- 
partment of a Sunday school should be 
| taught by a man. It is the writer’s con- 
| viction and experience that if the appeal 
| of boyhood is properly put up to the 
strongest men, they can usually be secured 
as teachers. (See Boys, Men Teachers 
for.) In making this appeal in a convinc- 
_ing way it is necessary not only to sug- 
gest the crying needs and opportunities 
represented by these boys, but also to guar- 
-antee to the prospective teacher suitable 
textbooks, adequate rooms, for meeting 
and a large enrollment. The prime diffi- 
culty with many a strong and willing man 
is that he supposes himself to be confined 
to courses of study which he knows are 
not adapted to boys. Many a prospective 
teacher will be charmed to find how many 
short and practicable courses for study 
and discussion in boys’ classes are now 
available. The esprit de corps of a large 
class of boys is much finer than that of a 
small one, and a strong leader is not only 
pleased by a large and appreciative group, 
but he can actually teach them to better 
effect. A large group, too, forms a natural 
nucleus for the week-day social organiza- 
tion, which is the necessary supplement to 
the Sunday class. Such a class deserves 
the best separate classroom which the 
church contains, and even in _ poorly 
equipped churches it will be possible, with 
some ingenuity, to secure at least seclu- 
sion for such a class. 

As has already been suggested, courses 
of study, suitable for boys, are beginning 
to be published. The general pedagogical 
principles which underlie a textbook, are, 
of course, not different for boys than for 
girls, but so much more intense are the 
intellectual doubts of boys, however, that 
peculiar care should be taken in the prep- 
aration of courses of studies for boys, that 
they be taught nothing which they may 
need to unlearn later. Dr. Hoben criti- 
cizes the typical textbook that has been 
prepared for boys, by saying that it ad- 
dresses itself too much to tradition and 
too little to modern life. Dr. Hoben in- 
sists that “Under Christian guidance he 
must learn the ethical value of an orderly 
world, the morality that inheres in cause 












157 


Boy, Training the 


and effect, the divine help which is not 
partiality.” The textbook for adolescent 
boys should also recognize the masculine 
approach to religion. This is done in the 
excellent book of Prof.: Jeremiah W. 
Jenks, Life Problems of High School 
Boys. The same recognition is apparent 
in Theodore G. Soares’ Heroes of Israel. 
In the new senior International Graded 
Course on “The World as a Field of Chris- 
tian Service,” there are parallel lessons re- 
lating to boys’ and girls’ future vocations. 

The method of study in a boys’ class is 
somewhat different from that in a class of 
girls. Boys, more than girls, respond to 
class organization. If there is a class 
president, who calls the class to order, con- 
ducts brief business exercises, and then in- 
troduces the teacher, the problem of dis- 
cipline is largely solved. If the secretary 
and treasurer of the class sit near the exit, 
in order that they may pass out the collec- 
tion and record to the school secretary, 
without requiring his entrance, this works 
toward efficiency in teaching. Such an 
organization also makes a happy relation 
between the class and its week-day social 
activities. It is especially helpful if a 
class of boys can be seated about a table. 
Boys who put their elbows together on a 
table feel a sense of fellowship. The atti- 
tude itself is conducive to order, and 
handwork, which is appropriate both for 
orderliness and education, requires to be 
done at a table. In a class where hand- 
work is performed or other visual methods 
are used, it is better for the teacher to 
stand. In a class where didactic or debat- 
ing methods are employed, he had better 
be seated. 

It is, no doubt, much more easy to se- 
cure home study of the lessons from girls 
than from*boys, unless the required home 
study be of a sort which fits in with a 
boy’s interest, talents and leisure. It 
grows increasingly difficult as the crowd- 
ing engagements of high school life come 
on to secure much attention to the lesson 
outside the Sunday-school hour. Some 
teachers to-day are successful in getting 
some definite tasks done at home. Others 
frankly prefer to have their boys approach 
the topic freshly and to require no home 
work. Those who do expect home prepara- 
tion usually find that a boy will answer 
a special question, look up a particular 
reference or perform an individual task 


Boy, Training the 


of handwork move readily than he will 
meet the indefinite requirements of the 
ordinary Sunday school textbook. Many 
teachers, owing to the ease with which 
boys lose their Sunday-school quarterlies, 
give out the home work orally or on separ- 
ate sheets of paper, and require that the 
textbooks be kept in a drawer of the class- 
room table. 

In teaching boys there are three meth- 
ods which deserve special mention—the 
manual method, the biographical method, 
and the debating method. The manual 
methods that are possible in the Sunday- 
school class are of considerable variety. 
There are textbooks like Gates’ Life of 
Christ, which suggest the filling in with 
pencil of answers to questions. There is 
the building up of a junior Bible, utilized 
in the Completely Graded Series. (See 
Bible Study Union Lessons.) There is 
map-making, executed with pencil, crayon, 
or the use of paper pulp or plasticine. 
There is also the clipping and arranging 
of a gospel harmony, and the making 
of simple Oriental articles. In all this 
work it is important for the teacher to 
discriminate between methods that actu- 
ally make the lesson plainer, and those 
that are merely attractive or distract- 
ing. Elaborate handwork is better done 
at home by individuals, The plan of 
starting a class or school museum will 
often secure the cooperative manufacture 
of a number of interesting articles, which 
will be useful in several classes. It helps 
materially, especially in the years of 
twelve and thirteen, if an exhibit of school 
work is announced in connection with the 
week of Children’s Day. 

The biographical method involves a cer- 
tain amount of research on the part of the 
teacher, and here the methods of teaching 
are similar to those of teaching history in 
the public schools. We already have avail- 
able some helpful textbooks of other than 
Biblical characters. This kind of study 
gives opportunity for the fertile method 
of story-telling, and may also lead to some 
supplemental reading. It is a helpful de- 
vice to assign to each pupil of the class the 
name of some hero, always calling the roll 
by naming these heroic prototypes, and 
demanding that each pupil be able to tell, 
5 in the first person, the biography of his 

ero. 

The type of didactic methods best 


158 


\ 





Boy, Training the — 
adapted to the teaching of boys is the 4 


debating or discussion method and the | 


time when this is peculiarly applicable is 
in the later high school years. This is the | 
best method of arriving at moral decisions 
among young men who are upon the verge 
of their careers and life missions. By 
this method a skillful teacher can take a 
group of boys who have been acustomed to 
listening withowt enthusiasm to a conven- 
tional moralizing and inspire them to get 
on their feet and discuss heartily with each 
other. Instead of being the central figure 
in the class, the teacher now sits quietly at 
one side as an umpire. At this period of © 
life it is helpful, only occasionally how- 
ever, to invite in a specialist for a Sun- 
day, to give an authoritative talk upon 
some disputed point, or some respected 
business-man who will tell of his own 
early struggles or suggest some of the 
ideals of modern Christian business life. 
(See Debating as a Method of Instruc- 
tion.) 

Most Sunday schools find difficulty in 
securing the participation of older boys in 
the worship and work of the Sunday 
school. This difficulty is to be met by an- 
ticipating it in the earlier years. By the 
development of a strong school spirit, and 
especially by encouraging the organization 
of a boy choir or giving the younger boys’ 
classes special opportunities for making 
reports of their work to the school, the 
boys in a given school may become accus- 
tomed to taking part in the school activ- 
ities. These activities, so far as boys par- 
ticipate in them, must, of course, be graded 
to their advancing intelligence. Some one 
has forcibly said: “To the same age of 
boys who in the Civil War, shouldered 
muskets and undertook long marches, — 
and waged a fight, we offer the task of © 
passing out singing books and marking 
library cards, and then we wonder that 
they lack enthusiasm about church work.” 
Some schools have organized separate 
boys’ departments for all the boys of a 
Sunday school beyond the Primary grade. 
These boys’ departments meet separately, 
and their officers, except an adult super- 
visor, are boys entirely. In such depart- 
ments the songs, the addresses and the 
general movement are distinctly masculine 
in character. It is claimed that it is | 
possible in these boys’ departments to de- 
velop an esprit de corps, which was impos- 


Boy, Training the 


sible where co-education had been en- 
forced, that the leakage of membership at 
the critical years was entirely stopped, and 
that these organized boys’ departments 
formed a natural basis for the social or- 
ganizations of the week. ‘To the leader of 
such departments is properly given the 
title of “Boys’ Work Director.” Whether 
or not such departments are separately 
organized, that church is wise which con- 
ducts all its religious and social work for 
boys under an authorized committee of the 
church, known as “The Committee on 
Boys.” It is possible to secure the active 
cooperation of older boys in the public 
exercises of the school, by the gradual 
building up of the sentiment that it is an 
honor to assume such leadership. (See 
Festivals, S. S.) 

We are becoming more and more con- 
vinced that week-day social work with 
boys is no longer a small optional part of 
the Sunday school. The boys’ “gang” is 
universal. The “gang” is bound to meet 
anyway. ‘The church is recognizing that 
if it would enter deeply into the natural 
life of boys, it must do so through their 
week-day friendships and activities. Sun- 
day-school teachers are recognizing that 
they do not form an actual acquaintance 
with their boys unless they see them in 
connection with their play and other week- 
day interests. We must, therefore, enter 
into some description of the boys’ organ- 
izations which are growing up in close 
connection with our Sunday schools. 

The basis of membership in church boys’ 
clubs is the integer of the Sunday-school 
class. Where the class is not large enough 
to form a separate club, or the teacher of 
a given class has not the leisure nor the 
capacity for this work, it is possible to 
join together two or more classes in one 
club. An ideal scheme may be worked out 
by which each of these clubs has its defi- 
nite relation, not only to a grade in Sun- 
day school, but also to all the other activ- 
‘ities of the church in behalf of boys of the 
same age. (See Educational Agencies of 
the Church.) The range of membership in 
such clubs should not usually be more 
than three years. Boys below twelve 
should be grouped by themselves, those 
from twelve to fourteen form another 
group, boys from fifteen to seventeen a 
third, and those from eighteen to twenty 
another. | 


159 


Boy, Training the 


Perhaps the most common mistake that 
is made in organizing church boys’ clubs, 
is In endeavoring to start with the mass, 
instead of with a group. Too many lead- 
ers fall a prey to the American temptation 
of calling a public meeting, becoming ex- 
ploited in the newspapers, and then under- 
going the inevitable dwindling process 
that must follow. The best and strongest 
boys’ clubs are those beginning with a few. 
Boys who are already friendly to each 
other should make it a privilege to others 
to jo. With these few the leader makes 
an intimate acquaintanceship, discovers 
those who may be depended upon, works 
out his plans on a simple scale, and then 
is ready to do his larger work efficiently. 
This method, too, is the most direct way 
toward inclusive organization, because 
within a year of organization such a club 
will actually hold more boys and hold 
them more tightly than will the society 
that is begun with an inflated member- 
ship. 

The success of a church boys’ club de- 
pends most of all upon its leader. He 
does not need to be a remarkable man in- 
tellectually, but he must have a certain 
amount of good sense, firmness and per- 
sistence, and be able to put himself into 
easy and natural relationships with his - 
boys. 

The boys’ club must also appeal to the 
boys’ natural interests. The Boys’ Brig- 
ade (gq. v.) method succeeds because of a 
boy’s play instinct to imitate the soldier, 
the Knights of King Arthur because of 
the native instinct to imitate the knight, 
and the civic club because of the later 
instinct to imitate the citizen. 

A boys’ club does not need to be ex- 
pensive. The report of the work of the 
Men and Religion Forward Movement 
wisely states: “Given a strong leader, 
everything that comes to his hand is 
equipment: from the public park, or 
country road, to the home parlor, vestry, 
or classroom. A common delusion is that 
it is necessary for a church to have a well- 
equipped gymnasium, reading-room, game 
room and parlors for boys, open at all 
hours of the day and night. Such an 
equipment would be a millstone about the 
neck of the average church unless it were 
able to employ a sufficient staff adequately 
to utilize it. On the other hand, a room 
which can be used for meetings, is of great 


Boy, Training the 


advantage. Furniture and equipment 
which boys themselves have labored hard 
to secure, would be protected, while elab- 
orate equipment which has been given 
to the boys without effort on their part, 
would not have the same value in their 
eyes.” It is the writer’s experience that 
a boys’ club may be easily maintained 
from the start out of the small fees which 
the boys themselves can pay, and that the 
church gymnasium, after it is equipped 
with necessary apparatus can be conducted 
by means of its receipts, if only the 
trustees of the church will pay for its 
physical up-keep. 

The Men and Religion Forward Move- 
ment report insists that the organized 
Bible class is not only the proper basis 
for a boys’ club, but that “since it is small 
in organization, is modest and elastic, af- 
fords the minimum of organization and 
the maximum of efficiency, it is big enough 
to meet all the boys’ needs. Into it can 
be poured all the activities of all the or- 
ganizations ever known.” This is, no 
doubt, true. It is both foolish and waste- 
ful to organize the boys of a Sunday 
school in ways socially diverse and unre- 
lated. As this report suggests, “A boy’s 
allegiance cannot be split up among 
‘gangs.2 He must be a member of the 
‘gang.’ One organization is all that he 
can comprehend with loyalty at one time.” 
On the other hand, such ingenious and 
useful boys’ organizations have been de- 
vised that it is desirable to utilize their 
advantages, and it is possible at the same 
time to relate their devices to the single 
“sang,” which is the Sunday-school class. 
These organizations appeal to different 
interests of boys in turn, and they may 
be somewhat loosely graded as follows. 

The method of social organization which 
appeals to boys at the earliest age, when 
they care much to keep together at about 
ten, is that of “The Brotherhood of 
David.” This is a society based on the 
Bible, intended for younger boys, but is 
capable of being worked out more elabo- 
rately by older ones. The boys are a 
“camp” of the loyal comrades of David, 
and meet in an imaginary or literal 
“cave,” as he did when in exile. Boys pre- 
pare for kingliness through hardship, dis- 
cipline and manly exercises. This is the 
thought of the society. It is really a plan 
of church scouting for boys, and all the 


160 


4 


Boy, Training the — 


activities utilized by the Boy Scouts are 


appropriate here, although since its or- 


ganization admits boys somewhat younger, 


they may, in such cases, be worked out 
more simply. Other peculiar activities in 
this society consist in the handwork, of 
making and using slings, spears and Go- 
liath swords, in various physical exercises, 
initiations which are simple dramatiza- 


tions of the David stories and some ac- 


quisition of knowledge about David and 
his companions, outdoor life in the Holy 
Land, customs of the various races in the 
shepherd stage, and the stories of other 
heroes of the David type. 


plan is adapted to winter as well as to 
summer, and it interlocks well with the 
Boy Scout scheme. (See Dramatization, 
The Use of, in Teaching.) 

The Boy Scouts organization is making 
a strong appeal to boys between twelve and 
fifteen years of age. It is an endeavor to 
bring back young people who are losing 
too much the wholesomeness of primitive 
conditions to outdoor life and those activ- 
ities which encourage resourcefulness, 
hardiness, and patience. The standards 
for the different stages or degrees in the 
Scout plan have been worked out both 
with scientific accuracy and attractiveness 
of detail, and if followed out conscien- 
tiously they are educative of manly and 
heroic virtues. 
suffered somewhat from being unduly ex- 
ploited by those who saw its sensational 
possibilities, but the natural reaction has 


Each boy as- 
sumes the name of his favorite hero. The — 


The Scout movement has — 


still left in existence those leaders and or- 
ganizations that are doing the most quiet 


and thorough work. 
Just beyond the age of scouthood comes 


the organization called “The Knights of 


King Arthur.” This society utilizes the 
oldest Christian legend of our race. It 


claims to fulfill the promise of the peer- 


less king, that he would return to earth 


and reéstablish a kingdom of righteous- — 


ness. It is a non-secret society, intended for 


the encouragement of the manly qualities — 


suggested by Christian chivalry. The 


boys take the names of knights or other 
heroes, and bear them in all meetings of — 
their “castles.” Each boy is initiated with — 
much merriment into the degree of Page. — 
After a season, when he has been in- — 
structed in the virtues of self-control and — 


courtesy, he may become an SHsquire. 


ae, ae aS 


Boy, Training the 


After he has become a church member or 
has enlisted in service for others, he is 
made a Knight. Thus the purposes of 
the “castle” lead consistently upward. 
The appeal of the movement is to self- 
respect and honor and generosity. Reli- 
gion is unobtrusive, but integral. Con- 
claves held in winter may take the form 
of debates, athletic drills, study classes, 
games, etc. Here the greatest flexibility 
is allowed.: There are insignia, grips, 
passwords, and secret signs, but no secrets 
are kept from the parents of the members. 
There is much opportunity for handwork, 
athletics, artistry and music. In the 
summer-time quests and tournaments are 
held. Members who continue their rela- 
tion to the group are readily trained to 
become leaders of younger boys. 

There seems to be no single type of or- 
ganization that is generally useful with 
boys who are in the later years of high 
school. The Pilgrim Fraternity is an 
organization which builds upon the traits 
of civic loyalty and larger brotherhood 
manifested by the Pilgrim Fathers. 
There are societies which take advantage 
of the mystery and exclusiveness of the 
Greek letter fraternities found in high 
schools. Some churches are successful in 
winning these boys into membership in the 
adult brotherhoods of the church. It is 
the common experience that only boys who 
have been won and held strongly during 
the earlier years, fall in with many of 
these projects. The competition of social 
societies in high schools by this time be- 
comes most difficult. Two. forces, how- 
ever, hold older boys strongly when or- 
ganized methods fail. A loved and trusted 
Sunday-school teacher will continue a class 
in religious discussion until it is time for 
them to go away to school or to work. 
The church which asks individuals or 
small groups of these older boys to do 
manly acts of service, will also succeed in 
securing their codperation. 

~The points in this article may be 
summed up as follows: The special duty 
of the Sunday school during the earlier 
years of a boy’s life is to adapt its instruc- 
tion to his needs, and to hold him in a 
warm social atmosphere. During the 
adolescent years of special storm and 
stress the great problem -of the church is 
to find an adequate teacher and to place 
the boys in social organizations, closely 


161 


Boy Scouts in France 


related to their Sunday-school classes and 
designed to give them the opportunity to 
live out the moral life wholesomely to- 
gether. The final opportunity of the 
church is to train these boys to begin to 


serve others, W. B. Forsvsy: 
References: 
Boy in the Sunday School: 

Burr, H. M. Studies in Adolescent 
Boyhood. (Springfield, Mass. 1910.) 

Forbush, W. B. Church Work with 
Boys. (Boston, c1910.) , 

Foster, E. C. Boy and the Church. 
(Philadelphia, c1909.) 

Foster, E. C. Starting to Teach. 
(New York, 1910.) 

The Church Boys’ Club: 

Boy Scouts of America. Official 
Handbook for Boys. (Garden City, 
Nowe tule 

Fiske, G. W. Pilgrim Fraternity. 
(Oberlin, O.) 

Forbush, W. B. Boys’ Round Table 
- - . &@ Manual of the Knights of King 
Arthur. Ed. 8. (Detroit, 1910.) 

Forbush, W. B. and Masseck, F. L. 
Brotherhood of David. (Detroit) 


BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT IN FRANCE. 
—The Boy Scout movement was intro- 
duced to the French. people in July, 1909, 
by an article in Le Petit Journal written 
by a French author, M. Cheradame. 

To a Methodist minister, the Rev. Gal- 
lienne, however, belongs the honor of 
founding the first regular group of Boy 
Scouts in France in November, 1910. He 
was followed in March, 1911, by the noted 
educator, M. Berthier, principal of 
“L’Ecole de Roches,” who organized a sec- 
tion among the boys of his school. 

The Y. M. C. A.’s of France immedi- 
ately took up the movement, and organized 
on June 11, 1911, the first general assem- 
bly of the Eclaireurs (the official title for 
the Boy Scouts). Four different sections 
were represented at the gathering. 

In October, 1911, the “Ligue d’Educa- 
tion Nationale” was organized to encour- 
age the movement and adapt it to the 
French point of view. But in December of 
the same year, Lieutenant Benoit, of the 
French navy, returning from a voyage in 
England, gathered a number of interested 
persons, prepared a set of statutes, and 
definitely organized “La Société des 
Kclaireurs de France.” 


Boy Scouts in France 


Three different societies were thus pa- 
tronizing the Boy Scout movement, and 
introducing it, according to different 
methods, to the nation. 

The most important is “La Société des 
Eclaireurs de France” organized by Lieu- 
tenant Benoit, whose Executive Commit- 
tee in Paris is composed of the most repre- 
sentative people of France. Local com- 
mittees are being established in all the 
leading cities, and new organizations 
are being rapidly formed. In June, 1913, 
5,000 boys had already been enrolled, and 
it is estimated that at present (December, 
1914) at least 7,000 boys have enlisted. 

The organization has been closely mod- 
eled after the English form, with one 
most important change. It was decided 
to make it strictly neutral in the matter of 
religion. Accordingly, religious discussion 
is strictly forbidden during the outings, 
and the form of the oath of allegiance has 
been changed so as to remove all reference 
to God. The oath reads as follows: The 
Eclaireur promises on his honor to act 
in all circumstances aS a man, conscious 
of his duty, loyal and energetic. To love 
his country, to serve it in peace as in war. 
To obey the code of the Hclaireur. 

The code closely resembles the Law of 
the Boy Scout. But it has twelve articles 
instead of ten. The two extra ones being 
“The ‘Eclaireur’ is a man of initiative.” 
“The ‘Eclaireur’ always takes full responsi- 
bility for his own acts.” 

The French movement, however, care- 
fully avoids any excessive militarism, and 
in no way corresponds to the German 
movement in which the boys are armed 
with bayonets and are drilled by officers 
of the regular army. 

The entirely neutral character of this 
branch of the movement is opposed to the 
principles of the Y. M. C. A. workers, who 
had patterned their groups more closely 
after the English model, and preserved 
the English oath of allegiance (omitting 
of course the reference to the king). In 
June, 1911, it was decided that the troops 
already formed under the auspices of the 
Y. M. C. A. should preserve their religious 
character and extend their organization 
as widely as possible. They number at the 
present time about 2,500 members. 

The “Ligue d’Education Nationale’ is 
also at work organizing groups of “Kclai- 
reurs,” but their progress seems to be 


162 


Boy Scouts of America 


slower than the other societies. They have 
enrolled about 750 boys up to the present 
time. . 

In two points the league differs from 
the other organizations. They have ap- 
plied the idea of “self-government” by the 
boys themselves much more widely, omit- 
ting the taking of the oath (which is so 
much emphasized by the other organiza- 
tions), and giving the internal manage- 
ment of the groups largely into the hands 
of the boys. The second point is that of 
taking up much more thoroughly the idea 
of the boys’ club. In this they have fol- 
lowed the leadership of Baron de Cou- 
bertin. 

The history of the Boy Scout movement 
in France shows clearly the extreme diver- 
gences that exist in the country and the 
great difficulty that confronts any move- 
ment that would command the support of 
the whole people. The movement is at- 
tacked by two bitterly hostile camps and 
from totally different reasons. The mili- 
tant Freethinkers accuse it of being a 
Clerical plot to win the children into the 
churches ; while the Clericals, on the other 
hand, call it a Masonic institution to trap 
the children. A number of the bishops 
have forbidden Roman Catholic children 
to become members. 

In spite of the opposition of these pow- 
erful foes, the movement is growing and 
is doing much to inspire the ideals of jus- 
tice, altruism, and moral greatness in the 
minds and hearts of the boys of France. 

EK. W. BYssHE. 


BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA.—This is 
the American branch of a world-wide 
movement designed to engross the interest 
and engage the surplus energy of boys 
over twelve years of age. It aims to de-— 
velop the power of initiative and resource- 
fulness, to insure good citizenship, to off- 
set disadvantages caused by the presence 
of civilization, to further a love for out- 
door life and, through it to contribute to 
health, strength, happiness, and practical 
education. The Boy Scouts of America 
was incorporated under the laws of the 
District of Columbia, February 8, 1910. 
Before the middle of July, 1910, virtually 
all similar organizations in the United 
States were merged with the Boy Scouts 
of America. 

The administration is in the hands of 


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Boy Scouts of America 


a National Council working through an 


_ Executive Board. ‘This council, composed 


of the most representative men in the 
United States, has for its officers the Presi- 
dent of the United States as Honorary 
President, the ex-Presidents and the Vice- 
Presidents of the United States as honor- 
ary Vice-Presidents, a President, five 
Vice-Presidents and a Treasurer. Per- 
manent headquarters were established in 
the Fifth Avenue Building, New York 
city, January 1, 1911. The executive offi- 
cer, Mr. James E. West, has the title of 
Chief Scout Executive. Boys’ Life is the 
Boy Scouts’ magazine. 

There are now in the United States 
about 300,000 Boy Scouts, directly in 
charge of whom are 7,000 Scout Masters 
who have received commissions from na- 
tional headquarters. These Scout Masters 
are men, each of whom has voluntarily 
gathered a group of boys known as a troop 


and named after the town or section in 


which they have been organized. The troop 


_ meets in a church, Sunday school, Y. M. 


_@. A., boys’ club, schoolhouse, or private 
_ home. 
_ divided into three classes. 
_ known as the tenderfoot class, require- 
ments for which are a minimum age of 


The members of the troop are 
The first is 


twelve, a knowledge of the Scout Law, 


_ sign salute, and significance of the badge; 


the composition and history of the na- 
tional flag and the customary form of re- 


_ spect due to it, and the ability to tie four 
of the common kinds of knots. 


After at least one month’s service as a 
tenderfoot, and having passed certain 


_ specified qualifications, he is made a sec- 


ond-class scout. These requirements call 


for a knowledge of first aid and bandaging, 


elementary signaling and of the sixteen 
principal points of the compass. To be- 


come a first-class scout, the second-class 
scout must pass still more difficult tests, 

after which he has as his goal the attain- 
ment of as many as possible of the fifty- 
Seven merit badges, each of which has its 
_ prescribed requirements. Among the merit 


badges are the following: badges for agri- 
culture, archery, athletics, camping, car- 
pentry, first aid to animals, forestry, life- 
saving, photography, seamanship, ete. The 


object from the very first enrollment has 


been to keep the boy busy at something 
and induce him to strive to attain pro- 
ficiency in as many lines as possible. 


163 


Boy Scouts of America 


The Scout Law, to which obedience is 
promised at the very beginning, is com- 
posed of twelve articles under the follow- 
ing heads: 

. A Scout is Trustworthy. 
. A Scout is Loyal. 

. A Scout is Helpful. 

. A Scout is Friendly. 

. A Scout is Courteous. 

. A Scout is Kind. 

. A Scout is Obedient. 

. A Scout is Cheerful. 

. A Scout is Thrifty. 

10. A Scout is Brave. 

11. A Scout is Clean. 

12. A Scout is Reverent. 

These laws are kept before the Scout 
at all times and it has been found to bring 
excellent results. Another principle which 
is constantly presented to the Scout is the 
requirement to “Do a good turn daily,” 
and the motto of the organization itself, 
“Be Prepared,” states well the spirit which 
is instilled into each Scout. Boys of any 
religion or creed are accepted as members 
of the organization. 

During the entire year “hikes” are made 
into the country where the things which 
have been learned at home can readily be 
put into practice. At the summer encamp- 
ment, where expense is kept at a mini- 
mum, the troop, and often the troops from 
a whole city, are treated to the very essence 
of the life and vigor of youth. The boys 
are interested in all modern improvements, 
such as city cleaning, fly extermination, 
and a sane Fourth of July. They often 
serve as guards and special police at cele- 
brations and parades, and cases of first 
aid and heroism are no longer unusual. 
One of the most important things taught 
the Scout is a thorough knowledge of 
municipal and national government, to- 
gether with his duty toward his country 
and love for God and for his home. 

The Boy Scout movement is based upon 
the principle that during the period of 
adolescence a boy needs to be given things 
to do, instead of being told to keep from 
doing other things. He is given an oppor- 
tunity to engage his interest in occupa- 
tions which are brightened by their con- 
nection with the “wild” out-of-doors. 
Many of the successful methods in the 
Boy Scout movement have recently been 
adopted by Sunday-school teachers in 
order to create a greater interest in the 


© CO 2 O> OF H CO We 


4 


Boy Scouts of England 


work and to engage the boys’ efforts for a 
longer time than merely an hour each 
Sunday. Penologists have declared the 
Boy Scout movement one of the greatest 
factors in the decrease of crime, because 
of its effectiveness in attracting the boy’s 
energy from the criminal and still pre- 
serving a virile, manly condition of both 
body and mind. (See Boy Scout Move- 
ment in France; Boy Scouts of England.) 
W. P. McGuire. 
References: 


Boy Scouts of America. Official 
Handbook for Boys. (Garden City, 
BN eye ULs) 

Cave, Edward. Boy Scouts Htke 
Book. (Garden City, N. Y., 1913.) 

St. Joseph (Mo.) Public Library. 
Reading Inst for the Boy Scouts of 
America. (Minneapolis, 1912.) 

Seaton, K.T. Boy Scouts of America. 
(New York, 1910.) 


BOY SCOUTS OF ENGLAND.—Princi- 
ples Underlying the Scout Movement. It 
is significant of the up to date and far- 
seeing tendency of the Sunday-school 
movement of to-day that a soldier should 
be asked to give ideas or suggestions on 
an institution which is supposed to be far 
remote from that of war and its accom- 
paniments. But in truth, in certain re- 
spects, the two lines have their common 
features: the training of recruits in the 
army, like training boys in school, is a 
method of preparing them to undertake 
war; in the one case it is war against 
material foes, in the other against 
spiritual ones, but in both cases they have 
to sacrifice their own safety or comfort 
or interests in the noble cause of their 
duty, their country, and their fellow 
men, 

The principle, therefore, on which sol- 
diers are trained may be just as well 
applied to the training of boys, though the 
details may be altogether different. 

It is a common fallacy to suppose that 
in the army soldiers are made by putting 
a number of young civilians through a 
certain amount of drill: if that were done 
one might make a very nice-looking ma- 
chine for parade work, but one that would 
entirely lack the individuality, initiative, 
and manliness which are the necessary 
attributes for men who are going to win 
battles. 


164 


Boy Scouts of England | 


So too, in the school, a class may repeat 
lessons by rote, answer certain questions 
with certain answers, and do their drill 
with precision and smartness. But that 
does not give them the qualities of char- 
acter necessary for men who are going 
to win the battles of life. 

Though not a trained teacher the 
writer has been frequently asked by Sun- 
day-school teachers to give suggestions on 
Sunday-school work. The teachers say 
that they have difficulty in getting their 
boys to remember what they have been 
taught, and afterwards to be influenced 
by it in their lives and characters. It 
has been found by experience that in the 
first place it is essential to consider what 
is the aim of the training and to keep that 
always in view, for so much attention 
can be devoted to the steps that the ob- 
ject is lost sight of. 

The key to success in training is not so 
much to teach the pupil as to get him to 
learn for himself. The difference between 
education and instruction is shown by the 
derivation of these words: to educate 
means to draw out and expand the intelli- 
gence of the boy, whereas to instruct 
means to drive knowledge into him. 

The first step is to make the subject 
appeal to the boy. He is like a fish that 
has to be caught: to catch him you must 
lure him with a succulent worm; it is 
not much use trying to fish with hard, 
dry biscuit; you may, it is true, get a 
nibble from him with such bait, but you 
will never land him and make him your 
own. . 

Give the boy things to do, rather than 
dates to learn. By doing he learns for 
himself to a great extent, and what he 
teaches himself to do—whether it is good 
or bad—he goes on doing all his life. 
With soldiers the aim of the training is 
to make the men good campaigners. 
Therefore, under the latest systems they 
give them the elements of campaigning, 
to practice on as the first step and add the 
drill later. So with boys. The aim being 
to make him a good, practical Christian 
it would seem only common sense to start 
him at doing Christian acts, and later on 
the theoretical training can be applied. 
Indeed it would practically come of it- 
self. It is quite simple, for instance, to 
tell off the school into groups for social 
service, as is done in the Boy Scouts where 


ad 


Boy Scouts of England 


patrols of six boys undertake “Missioner 
Service” as it is called; that is, they take 


_ charge of aged or infirm people in their 
neighborhoods and tend them daily in 


_ their homes. 


This is very popular work 
with the lads and gives them a direct start 
in being practical Christians. 

For developing their ideal of God there 


is nothing so simple and so effective as 
_ to take the boys out into the woods or 


parks instead of always keeping them in 


a room on a Sunday afternoon, and intro- 


_ duce them to the study of nature. 


_ plants, insects, and animals. 


This 
is now becoming the practice very widely. 
Every boy has in him the germ of a natu- 
ralist, and he loves to study the habits of 
And it is 
through the wonders unfolded in these 


_ that he is most easily led to recognize and 


realize the universal hand of God the 
Creator. 
The Boy Scouts.—The present author- 


_ ized scheme of education in the schools 


includes plenty of book-work, but little 


_ practical development of the quality that 
_ eounts; namely, character, which is of the 
_ first importance. Hundreds of thousands 


of boys in the great cities, after an educa- 
tion in reading sufficient to enable them 
to devour the horrors of the Police News, 
and in arithmetic to help them to make 
their football wagers, are being allowed 


_ to drift into the ranks of the “hooligans” 
_ and “wasters” without any attempt to stay 


_ them. 
Committee [England].) 


(See Ex-Scholars Employment 
They receive 


_ no systematic teaching in resourcefulness, 


chivalry, thrift, responsibility, citizenship, 
or patriotism—all that goes to make a 
practical Christian—a worker instead of 
a mere worshiper. 

(a) How is it possible to apply a 
temedy for this? 

(b) What form can the remedy take? 

(c) How can the existing organiza- 


tions, such as Sunday schools, best utilize 


_ their influence to supply this want? 


' acter’ into the men of the future. 


(a) The remedy must be applied to the 


_ rising generation. 


(b) Its aim should be to instill “char- 
By 
“character” is meant a spirit of manly 
self-reliance and of unselfishness—some- 
thing of the practical Christianity which 


_ prompts the boy to do good as well as to 
_ be good, and to regard the former as im- 
_ portant as the latter if not more so. 


165 


Boy Scouts of England 


(c) A great work is being carried on 
by the Sunday schools, the Boys’ Brigade 
(q. v.), the Church Lads’ Brigade, the 
Young Men’s Christian Association 
(q. v.), and many similar organizations. 
But they only touch a fraction of the 
three and a half million lads who need 
help. That they do not influence a greater 
number is due to: 

(1) Want of amalgamation of effort 
and mutual codperation among them; (2) 
Difficulty in getting enough qualified 
young men to take up the work of train- 
ing the boys; (3) Difficulty of attracting 
the boys and of maintaining their interest 
after they have been won. 

Boy Scouts and the Church.—These 
difficulties seemed to be remediable in 
some particulars, and suggested the 
scheme of “scouting for boys” as a step 
toward meeting them, since being appli- 
cable to all these societies it might, by 
common adoption, form a bond between 
them; by reason of its practical and 
sporting tendency and the absence of red 
tape it might appeal to a wider field of 
instructors; and, above all, by its variety 
of attractions it appeals directly to the 
boys themselves—even to the worst of 
them. 

Scoutcraft includes the qualities of the 
frontier colonists, such as resourcefulness, 
endurance, pluck, trustworthiness, ete., 
plus the chivalry of the knights; these 
attributes, both moral and physical, are 
held up to the boys, in a practicable form 
for imitation and daily practice. 

The training is regarded from the boys’ 
point of view and shaped accordingly; 
and, so far as possible, the organization is 
framed to meet the instructor’s wants by 
decentralizing authority, and by giving 
local support without irritating super- 
vision, red tape, or expense. 

The Scout system is to lead the lads on 
to pass tests in various qualifications, 
handicrafts, ete., such as are likely to be of 
value to them in their future careers. 
Thus there are badges for naturalists, 
electricians, horsemen, farmers, garden- 
ers, musicians, carpenters, etc., in addi- 
tion to the actual Scouts’ badges of first 
and second class, testifying to their capa- 
bilities in swimming, pioneering, cooking, 
woodmanship, boat management, and 
other points of manliness and handiness. ‘ 
The boy is encouraged in the personal 


Boy Scouts of England 


responsibility for his physical develop- 
ment and health; his honor is trusted, and 
he is expected to do a good turn to some 
one every day. 

The training is non-military; even the 
ordinary drill employed by so many boys’ 
leagues being reduced to the lowest neces- 
sary limits, since drill tends to destroy 
individuality, and one of the chief aims 
is to develop the personal individual char- 
acter. 

In regard to religion, the Boy Scouts 
are interdenominational; the organiza- 
tion does not assume or interfere with the 
prerogative of parents or pastors by giving 
religious instruction, but insists upon the 
observance and practice of whatever form 
of religion the boy professes, the main 
duty being to impress upon him the daily 
practice of chivalry and helpfulness to 
others. 

It is recognized what a great force the 
churches are in the lives of the uprising 
generation, and rather than we use them 
to help forward a scheme, they are asked 
to use these methods to help them in their 
work. For this reason any church, Sun- 
day school, or other religious body, can 
raise a troop of Scouts for their boys and 
put their own men in charge with the 
reasonable proviso, of course, that the man 
is suitable and that the management is 
within the very broad lines laid down in 
the textbook Scouting for Boys. 

There are now some thousands of troops 
being conducted in connection with the 
Church of England, the various Noncon- 
formist churches, the Roman Catholic 
Church, the Jewish Church, ete. 

They all have the common bond of the 
Seout Law, which every Scout promises 
to obey: 

1. To do his duty to God and the King. 

2. To help others. 

3. To obey the Scout Law, 
the only difference being that the “duty 
to God” is interpreted somewhat differ- 
ently by the various bodies. 

Those who are interested in the scheme 
can look further into it, it being impos- 
sible in a brief space to go fully into it; 
everything is to be found in the book 
Scouting for Boys. Wherever the idea 
can be fitted into existing work, it will 
be found that it will help very materially 
in efforts among the boys, by (1) Putting 
a spirit of chivalry and comradeship 


166 


Boys’ and Girls’ Organizations 


among them. (2) Instilling the practical 
side of Christianity into them. (3) Se- 
curing and holding some of the wilder 
and more troublesome boys whom it would 
otherwise be difficult to reach. (See Boy 
Scout Movement in France; Boy Scouts 
of America. ) 
Sir Rospert BADEN-POWELL. 
References: 

Baden-Powell, Sir Robert. Boy 
Scouts as a National Organization. 
(London, 1910.) 

Baden-Powell, Sir Robert. Hduca- 
tional Possibilities of the Boy Scouts’ 
Training. (London, 1911.) 

Young, R. E. comp. Boy Scout Tests. 
and How to Pass them. (Glasgow, 
1913.) 


BOYHOOD.—Srr ADOLESCENCE AND 
ITs SIGNIFICANCE, 


BOYKIN, SAMUEL (1829-18 ?).—Bap- 
tist clergyman and editor; was born in 
Milledgeville, Ga., in 1829, but his boy- 
hood was spent in Columbus, Ga. Mr. 
Boykin was partly educated in Pennsyl- 
vania and Connecticut, and was gradu- 
ated in 1851 from the Georgia State Uni- 
versity. During his college course he 
united with the Baptist Church upon con- 
fession of faith, was licensed to preach in 
1851, and ordained in 1861, but served 
only one year in a regular pastorate. 

He became editor of the Christian Index 
in 1859, at that time owned by the 
Georgia Baptist Convention. Later he 
purchased the Index. The publication of 
this and the Child’s Index were inter- 
rupted by the Civil War. In 1872 the 
Child’s Index was merged into Kind 
Words, the Sunday-school paper of the 
Southern Baptist Convention, and in 1873 
Mr. Boykin was elected editor of it. 

As editor and expositor of the Sunday- 
school lessons Mr. Boykin wielded great 
influence over the youth of the denomina- 
tion, and was very useful in the cause of 
missions and the Sunday school. He also 
edited The Child’s Gem, a “weekly illus- 
trated Sunday-school paper for infant 


33 
classes. Emity J. FEtt. 


BOYS AND GIRLS, COMMUNITY OR- 
GANIZATIONS FOR.—The community 
organizations for boys and girls at work 
in the church and neighborhood life may 


a 


Boys’ and Girls’ Organizations 


be classified into three general types; re- 


ligious, semireligious, and welfare. 

Among those of the religious type may 
be mentioned the Junior Baraca Loyal 
Movement, the Junior Brotherhoods of 
St. Andrew, and of Andrew and Philip, 
the Junior and Intermediate Christian 
Endeavor societies (including the Bap- 
tist Young People’s Union and the Ep- 
worth League), the Missionary and Sew- 
ing Circle, the Messenger Cadet Corps, 
the Prayer Band, the Boys’ and Girls’ 
Choirs, the Dorcas Circle, the Queen 
Esther Circle, the Missionary Class, the 
Temperance Legion, the Philathea class, 
the Standard Bearers, the Life Saving 
Service, the King’s Sons and Daughters, 
the Boy Trust, the Bethany Girls, and 
the Church Attendance League. 

The semireligious type embraces the 
Knights of King Arthur, the Knights of 
the Holy Grail, the Knights of Galahad, 
the Knights of Saint Paul (Kappa 
Sigma Pi), the Epworth Court of Arthur, 


The Knights and Esquires of the White 


— Covenanter 


Shield, the Knights of Methodism, the 
Companies and Miriam 


Chapters, the Queens of Avalon and the 


Girls’ Friendly Society. 
The welfare type of boy and girl or- 
ganization finds expression in the Boys’ 


Brigade, the Anti-Cigarette League, the 


_ Athletic 


Mass Boys’ Club, the Church Boys’ Club, 
the Woodcraft Indians, the Boy Pioneers 
or Sons of Daniel Boone, the Achieve- 
ment Club, the Girl Pioneers of America, 
the Boy Scouts, the Camp Fire Girls, the 
League (Sunday school or 


public), the National First Aid Associa- 
tion, the Agricultural club (corn or can- 
ning) and the Social Center. 


The religious type of boy and girl or- 


ganization has for its object the direct 
inculcation of religious teaching, the deep- 
ening of the individual experience and 
_ the missionary objective of reaching others 
for Christian living. Usually it is not 
_boylike or girllike in its form of organ- 
ization, having been modeled after the 
societies designed for adult expression, 


and its activities are not in keeping with 


_ the genius of developing life. The funda- 
Mental need of these organzations is of 
some kind of expression for the religious 


| 


impulses that come to the boy and girl in 


their church life, without destroying their 


Natural, genuine, and spontaneous reli- 


167 


Boys’ and Girls’ Organizations 


gious expression. The methods in use 
have unconsciously contributed to the cul- 
ture of cant and religious unreality. The 
religious type of organization, adult in 
nature and form, has failed to discover 
and provide for the physical, social, 
mental, and religious nature of the boy 
and girl in their life development. The 
need is to spiritualize the four phases as 
they find their expression in everyday 
activity. “And Jesus advanced in wis- 
dom [mentally] and stature [physically], 
and in favor with God [spiritually] and 
men [socially ].” | 

The semtreligious type of organization 
aims to portray and inculcate religious 
teaching in some form of symbolism. It 
seeks to give impressions and to afford 
expressions of religious life in ancient 
titles, ritual, initiations, and degrees. It 
centers in an imaginary environment and 
seizes on just one characteristic of boy 
and girl development around which to 
mold all of it. It uses solemn secrecy, 
grips, passwords, spears, shields, regalia, 
and much paraphernalia to accomplish its 
purposes, all drawn from the experience 
of secret orders and societies. The chief 
objection to these boy and girl orders is 
the play-idea of organization that domi- 
nates them. ‘They give much to the boy 
and girl, and valuable religious truth is 
taught by the symbolism, but it is a thing 
apart from the life of the home, school, 
or the community. The ritual and sym- 
bolism are soon outgrown and the leader 
of the organization meets indifference in 
the boys and girls who were once so en- 
thusiastic. This type of organization is 
not adapted to the ordinary worker, and 
emphasizes method instead of personality. 

The welfare type of organization seeks 
to interest the boy or girl in a group of 
activities that dovetail into their develop- 
ing lives and to guide them in the pursuit 
of these recreations. It seeks to produce 
character by recreation-education. It does 
not attempt to teach religious truth ex- 
cept to form habit through carefully 
planned activities. The aim of the Wood- 
eraft Indians is probably the best expres- 
sion of the purpose of all: “Something to 
do, something to think about, something 
to enjoy, with a view always to character 
building.” 

Most of the activities of the organiza- 
tions of this type are of the “out-of-doors” 


Boys’ and Girls’ Organizations 


kind. It is drill, first-aid, woodcraft, 
camperaft, scoutcraft, athletics, aquatics, 
or others of allied and similar nature. 
The physical is dominant, although the 
social, mental, and religious are directly 
affected. These organizations seek to 
employ the leisure time and so to occupy 
the boy and girl with legitimate, desirable 
activity as to leave no time for the crea- 
tion of destructive habit. Such organiza- 
tions have met with great appreciation 
because they are built about the growing 
needs of the developing life, and place 
the boy or girl in the center of their plans. 
Since coming into existence they have 
largely supplanted the semireligious type, 
and have modified the view-point and ac- 
tivities of the religious kind. However, 
the welfare type of organization is also 
limited in not being sufficiently inclusive 
in activities to reach more than one stage 
or period of boy or girl development. The 
Mass Boys’ Club is outgrown from four- 
teen to sixteen years, and the Boy Scouts 
and Camp Fire Girls at fifteen. Hach 
organization of this type makes its appeal 
to a particular limited age. 

What is the value and how shall a 
leader choose from among the numerous 
organizations for boys and girls? The 
answer to this question must be according 
to the aim of the leader and in keeping 
with his ability. The form of organiza- 
tion successful with one leader may be a 
failure with another, This success is not 
inherent in the organization, but in the 
leader, for the gifts, talents, preparation, 
and adaptability of leaders vary. <A 
leader of the intellectual type might be 
successful with the Knights of King 
Arthur, and a failure with the Boy 
Scouts, while an out-of-doors man would 
be successful with the Woodcraft Indians. 
The personality and aim of the leader 
will largely determine the form of organ- 
ization and the method of work. 

There is another determining factor in 
the choice of an organization—that which 
will appeal to the boys or girls to be bene- 
fited. A leader of a certain type can make 
any form of organization serve his pur- 
pose, but he cannot expect his successor 
to do exactly the same thing. Unless the 
organization is simple enough for ordi- 
nary understanding, it becomes ineffective 
at the expiration of the leader’s term of 
service. 


168 


a 
Boys’ and Girls’ Organizations 


These three factors—the organization 
that appeals to the boys or girls, the ob- 
jective or aim of the leader, his person- 
ality, talents, preparation and adaptabil- 
ity—determine the form of organization 
that will secure the best results. 

There are several other considerations 
equally vital in choosing an organization 
for boys or girls. The right kind of an 
organization for church or church school 
should stand for the development of the 
whole boy or girl. It should help to 
equip them for personal service and for 
group life. Its work should be progres. 
sive in character and complete enough to 
meet all the needs of the boy or girl, not 
already supplied in the home, school, 
church, or other forms of community life, 
It should codrdinate all their activities, 
and it does not fulfill its function com- 
pletely until it has made connection with 
the activities of the next stage of develop- 
ment. 

This is where the organizations of the 
three types fail. They do not fulfill all 
these requirements. They accomplish 
some and fail in others. In order to 
afford the boys and girls their complete 
development, both personal and group, 
the present procedure in church and Sun- 
day-school life makes it necessary for 
them. to belong to more than one organ- 
ization. The principle of association 
among boys is not “gangs” but the 
“gang,” and that among girls is the 
“chum” and the “set.” But a boy or a 
girl’s allegiance cannot be fastened to 
gangs or sets; where this is attempted 
loyalty to self is produced, and the boy 
or girl seeks, rather than gives. Loyalty 
to the church and state is impossible with 
such training, because only the desire for 
personal advantage results. | 

The great need of to-day is for a simple, 
inclusive organization that harmonizes 
the aims, characteristics and appeals of 
the three types—religious, semireligious, 
and welfare. The Organized Sunday 
School Class for the Secondary Division 
or Teen Years seems to offer such an or- 
ganization. Its Sunday and through-the- 
week activities center about the boy and 
girl; they put the emphasis upon person- 
ality rather than upon method; are in 
accord with the teachings of the Bible 
and Christian experience; are recreational 
in nature; are designed to form habit and 


Boys’ Brigade 


sufficiently to minister to the physical, 
social, mental, and religious needs at the 
yarious stages of boy and girl life, with 
a view to establishing Christian character 
and to providing training in citizenship 
for the community and for the Kingdom 
of God. The organization of the class is 
simple and elastic, and is capable of con- 
stant modification in order to meet real 
needs. It may find headquarters in the 
local church, and demands loyalty to the 
church. 


Reference: 

Alexander, J. L. ed. The Sunday 
School and the Teens. Chap. XXIV. 
(New York, 1913.) 


BOYS’ BRIGADE (GREAT BRITAIN). 
—In the month of October, 1883, a small 
company of three officers and thirty boys 
met in a Sunday school in Glasgow, Scot- 
land, and called themselves “The Boys’ 
Brigade.” 

The boys who composed this pioneer 
company, now known as the First Glasgow 
Company of The Boys’ Brigade, were all 
pupils between twelve and seventeen years 
of age in the Mission Sunday school of 
ae Church, Free Church of Scot- 
and. 

One of the secrets of the strength and 
permanence of the Brigade is that all 
through its history it has been recognized 
as a fundamental essential that each com- 
pany shall be definitely connected with a 
church, Sunday school, or other Christian 
organization, the authorities of which 
have complete control over all the internal 
affairs of the company, including the ap- 
pointment of officers who are held respon- 
sible for the religious instruction of the 
boys. It is no doubt largely because of 
this distinctive feature that The Boys’ 
Brigade has been so readily adopted by all 
branches of the Christian Church, Estab- 
lished and Nonconformist. 

The object laid down at the beginning, 
and consistently adhered to is “the ad- 
vancement of Christ?’s Kingdom among 
doys, and the promotion of habits of 
dbedience, reverence, discipline, self-re- 
spect, and all that tends towards a true 
Jhristian manliness.” 

In the second year of the Brigade three 
ther churches in Glasgow, and one in 
fdinburgh, were so impressed by the re- 
jults produced on the boys, and the conse- 


J. L. ALEXANDER. 


169 


Boys’ Brigade 


quent improvement in the Sunday school, 
as to be induced to form companies. In 
its third year it crossed the border to 
London and Manchester, and took its first 
big stride, closing the year with 44 com- 
panies and 2,000 boys—more than half of 
these being in Glasgow. In its fourth 
year it crossed the Atlantic and took root 
in Canada and the United States. Now, 
after thirty years of continued progress, 
it is established in almost every English 
speaking country, and numbers through 
out the world 2,300 companies, 10,500 
officers and staff-sergeants, and 105,000 
boys. 

Since the institution of The Boys’ 
Brigade, a number of other organizations 
have been formed on similar lines, mostly 
confined to individual churches or reli- 
gious communities, such as the Church 
Lads’ Brigade, the Catholic Boys’ Bri- 
gade, The Boys’ Life Brigade (gq. v.), the 
Jewish Lads’ Brigade, and others, so that 
to-day there are probably not fewer than 
a quarter of a million boys brought under 
healthy physical training and religious 
influence as a direct result of the Brigade 
movement. 

It is universally admitted that one of 
the greatest needs of the day among the 
rising generation is the cultivation of the 
habit of prompt, cheerful obedience, and a 
sense of discipline, self-control, and re- 
spect for authority, and it is not too much 
to say that there is no training equal to 
military training and discipline for the 
inculeation of such habits. A remarkable 
fact brought out by the experience of the 
Brigade is that boys positively like strict- 
ness and discipline, so long as it is fair, 
and always prefer the companies in which 
the discipline is strictest. 

The military form which the Brigade 
took was suggested by the contrast be- 
tween the discipline and esprit de corps 
which existed in the Volunteer Battalion 
in which the writer served, and the com- 
parative lack of discipline or of esprit de 
corps which was too often the character- 
istic of the average Sunday school. The 
aim was to devise something that would 
appeal to a boy on the heroic side of his 
nature—something that would let him 
see that in the service of God there is as 
much scope for all that is brave and true 
and manly, as in the service of King and 
Country. 


Boys’ Brigade 


In every healthy boy there is an inher- 
ent desire to be a brave, true man, and 
the reason so many fail is that this desire 
has never been directed into the right 
channel. Many boys go wrong simply 
because they get perverted notions of what 
true bravery means. The Brigade set 
itself to develop that type of robust and 
vigorous manhood, physical and moral, 
which would naturally appeal to a boy, 
and with this the movement has been 
identified from the beginning. 

It is not the purpose of the Brigade 
to train boys for the army, but rather to 
train them to be good citizens and God- 
fearing men in whatever sphere of life 
they may choose. 

From the very beginning the Executive 
resolved that, while making the drill of 
the Brigade as thorough as possible, on 
the principle that everything that is worth 
doing is worth doing well, they would 
avoid anything suggestive of aping the 
army in the way of titles or uniform. 
It was accordingly laid down that the 
highest military title used should be that 
of “captain,” with junior officers as “lieu- 
tenants.” On the same principle, no uni- 
form is allowed beyond the uniform cap 
for officers, and the cap, belt, and haver- 
sack for the boys, worn with their own 
every day clothing. In this respect the 
Boys’ Brigade may confidently be said to 
be the least military of all the boys’ organ- 
izations referred to above. 

That excellent work may be done, even 
from the military point of view, on these 
simple lines, is abundantly demonstrated 
at the great reviews which are held annu- 
ally by the large “Battalions,” and not- 
ably on two historic occasions, viz:—the 
Coronation Review held by His Majesty 
The King, when Prince of Wales, on the 
Horse Guards Parade in 1902, when over 
12,000 boys of the various brigades for 
boys marched past, headed by The Boys’ 
Brigade as the senior organization; and 
the semi-Jubilee Review of The Boys’ 
Brigade alone, in September 1908, held at 
Glasgow, as the birthplace of the brigade, 
when 10,500 boys marched past H. R. H. 
Prince Arthur of Connaught. 

The Boys’ Brigade drill is a means to 
an end. The Brigade aims at taking up 
the whole round of a boy’s life, and con- 
secrating it all to the service of God. In 
this way the Brigade has become to tens 


170 


\ 


Boys’ Brigade 





of thousands of working-class boys much 
what public-school life, with all its inter- 
ests and associations, is to boys of a differ- 
ent social group. The Brigade fills a gap 
in Sunday-school life by providing’ 
healthy interests for the boy during his 
spare evenings. It may be drill on one. 
night of the week; gymnastics or swim- | 
ming club with instruction in life saving | 
on another; scouting, signaling, or other | 
variety of work, football or cricket on} 
Saturday afternoon—all permeated by a 
religious spirit and cemented together by | 
the definitely religious influence of the| 
Bible class, which is held on Sunday at) 
some hour which does not interfere with | 
either church service or Sunday school. 
The Bible class is recognized as the back-. 
bone of the company, and the attendance 
often attains a very high average—some- 
times reaching over ninety-seven per cent. 

Boys’ reading and recreation rooms are 
largely used in connection with the social! 
side of the work; while perhaps the most 
popular feature of Brigade life is the 
summer camp, by means of which many 
thousands of working-class boys spend a 
delightful week at the coast, or in the 
country, under the most wholesome con- 
ditions. There is no development of 
healthy work among boys that may not. 
be attached to the work of a company of 
the Brigade, and be made to pay its toll 
to the building up of character. 

Each year about 2,000 Brigade boys 
pass the St. John or St. Andrew’s ambu- 
lance examination in “First Aid to the 
Injured,” and there have been many cases 
of actual saving of life by the practical 
application of the knowledge gained im 
these classes, although no special award is 
given in such cases. The desire of the 
Executive has always been rather to min: 
imize, than to overdo, the granting ol 
awards and decorations, and to cultivat 
the idea of doing duty for its own sake 

Some years ago the Brigade Executive 
instituted a Boys’ Brigade Cross for Hero’ 
ism, to be awarded to any Brigade boy 
“who has performed a signal act of self) 
sacrifice for others, shown heroism in say 
ing life or attempting to save life, or dis 
played marked courage in the face 0 
danger.” Although the standard for th 
award of this cross has been set very high 
it is given not only for saving life, bu 
also in a case where a boy has run a grav 





Boys’ Brigade 


risk of losing his own life. No fewer than 
sixty-two Brigade boys throughout the 
' Empire have won it. 

_ The greatest controlling force in the 
Brigade is the personal influence of the 
officers over the boys; while not the least 
yaluable feature is the great good which 
the officers themselves get, in calling out 
their sympathies and in the development 
of their characters towards a nobler and 
stronger manhood. Henry Drummond 
; (gq. v.) used to say that the Brigade would 
have been worth starting if it had been 
only to benefit the officers. 

_ That the Brigade is having a perma- 
nent effect on the national life is abun- 
dantly shown by the tens of thousands of 
“old boys” now to be found in all parts of 
the Empire, many of them occupying posi- 
tions of trust and responsibility. Large 
‘numbers are engaged in active Christian 
work, nearly 4,000 acting as officers or 
staff-sergeants in their own or other com- 
panies of The Boys’ Brigade. 

- The international influence of the Bri- 
_gade may be seen in the cordial relation- 
ship existing between the Home Brigade 
and the great organization which has now 
grown up in the United States of Amer- 
ica, while developments on similar lines 
are to be found in nearly all the British 
Dominions and in Denmark and other 
continental states. 

_ The Brigade is controlled by an Exec- 
utive appointed annually by the Brigade 
Council, which is composed of the cap- 
‘tains of all companies throughout the 
Kingdom, His Majesty the King is 
Patron of the Brigade, the Archbishops of 
Canterbury and of York are vice-patrons, 
The Earl of Aberdeen is honorary presi- 
dent, Lord Guthrie is president, while 
among its honorary vice-presidents are 
to be found representative clergymen and 
‘Ministers of all the leading churches of 
the land. 

__ An ample and interesting explanatory 
literature is now on hand at headquarters 
‘Office, 30 George square, Glasgow, or 
London Office, 34 Paternoster Row, E.C., 
and will be sent, free of charge to any 
Teader of this article who will send in his 
Tame and address. 
| Sir W. A. SMITH. 


(Glas- 


Reference: 
' The Boys’ Brigade Manual. 
gow, 1908.) 


ify gt 


Boys, Country 
BOYS’ CAMPS.—Serr Camps, CHurcH. 


BOYS, COUNTRY.—Country boys are 
not a class by themselves, except as nega- 
tively they are distinguished from men, 
from girls, from animals, and from other 
boys whose life is urban or suburban. 
Affirmatively they are the primitive stuff 
and raw materials of manhood. They are 
subject to influences peculiar to their situ- 
ation; but not to that world of forces 
concentrated in the city. Among the 
things they escape or miss may be named, 
the noise, the crowd, the narrow spaces 
and paved streets, the street gangs, the 
constant companionships, the evenings 
out, the moving pictures, the luxurious 
and near-by church with numbers of their 
own age, the graded schools near enough 
to go home for dinner, the barber, the 
exactions in style, the boys’ club, the gen- 
eral irresponsibility of having no chores 
or daily tasks. (See Boy, The City.) 
All these things are attractive to boys, 
and the lack of them is sure to be re- 
garded by country boys in the light of a 
privation or hardship. But the mature 
judgment of their elders can easily make 
out a strong case in favor of the country 
boy on all these counts. The advantages 
are not all on one side; and certainly the 
disadvantages are not all with the country 
boy. But there is a large task awaiting 
this generation in making the country 
boy aware of his advantages, and in devel- 
oping in him a zeal for his own type 
instead of aping other types. 

If we analyze the type, we shall find 
something like this: (1) Sensory. The 
farm is the finest place in the world to 
develop all the senses by practice in in- 
fancy. The child is, however, left to his 
own devices with the result that he misses 
most of the good he might have received 
in this way. He comes to big boyhood 
with a sensory development that is strong 
only in a few particulars, and as a result 
of chance. His need on the sensory side 
is for systematic help from infancy in 
showing him things, and in calling all his 
senses into daily exercise in discriminat- 
ing forms, colors, sounds, tastes, odors, 
and the touch sensations. 

2. Motor. He has brute strength in 
the fundamental centers, but is generally 
defective in the accessories. This shows 
that his motor life has been good up to the 


Boys, Country 


age of nine or ten, but after that he 
lacked discipline in the finer acts of hand, 
eye, and voice, and in their correlations. 
Rural life is unsurpassed in its oppor- 
tunities for the finer motor developments, 
and the new education will give the coun- 
try boy practice in the rural arts without 
imitating city schools. 

3. Reflection. The country boy is less 
oppressed by the insistence of the objec- 
tive world than the city boy, and the sub- 
jective life is correspondingly larger. He 
is more alone, and has more chance to 
think for himself. He often lacks the 
‘needed help of other minds, and his 
thought is often crude and uninstructed. 
But there are a few whose thinking is to 
good purpose, and they rise to some dis- 
tinction. It may be by some wise guid- 
ance in each case. At all events this 
would appear to be the chief need of his 
reflective life, and the next need is for 
the tools, books, or resources to enable 
him to follow some hobby of his choice, 
such as electricity, or fine poultry, or 
postage stamps. 

4. Hmotional. The inherited instinct 
and dispositions may not be affected by 
city life, but solitude intensifies the emo- 
tional reactions. The phenomena of 
adolescence are more pronounced. The 
wild dominance of emotional states is 
more common. This needs only the guid- 
ance of the firm and sympathetic hand 
of parent, pastor, or teacher, to make it 
a source of superior power. A little in- 
struction will set right the esthetic emo- 
tions. The personal influence of an older 
friend, working through the higher emo- 
tions at the transition period, will gener- 
ally establish right tendencies in religion, 
for at first they are largely emotional, 
and they tend to run in the channels 
which family custom has marked out. 

5. Religious. The country boy is not 
naturally more religious than the city boy. 
But his roomy and solitary environment 
gives a religious cast to his emotional 
nature. The kind of religion depends 
upon his training in childhood; but given 
an equal exposure to religious atmosphere, 
the country boy shows the more pro- 
nounced type. 

6. Social. He has the same social 
impulses and needs as the city boy. But 
long hours of work and unfavorable con- 
ditions prevent social development. This 


172 


Boys, Country 


often makes him a morose and self-cen-. 
tered misanthrope, or a sexual pervert. 
The requisites for the development of the 
country boy on the social side are (a) 
time free from work, such as a Saturday 
half-holiday and occasional evenings; (b) 
encouragement and help at home to enjoy 
these times; (c) local leadership to plan 
meets and festivals and to organize teams 
and contests; (d) music taught in the 
neighborhood and practiced by all in reli- 
gious and social gatherings. (See Y. M. 
C. A. and the S. 8.) 

The country boy is conscious of his own 
power, but he does not feel that conscious- 
ness equaled by opportunity. He is not 
aware of his need of discipline and train-. 
ing and culture, until some harsh experi- 
ence forces his failure upon him, and he 
falsely concludes that he is mistaken in 
himself. He needs a gradual induction 
into life’s responsibilities, showing him 
how opportunities consist chiefly in the 
culture which prepares one for them. 
Then his consciousness of power will in- 
clude an awareness of opportunity. 

The readjustments now going on in 
rural life must give the country boy a 
new status. We shall not wholly solve 
his problem by regarding him as a product 
to be improved by eugenics, or uplifting 
measures. ‘There is something in that 
view, but rather is he to be regarded as 
a producer. He is an agent now helping 
to shape the interests of his parental 
home; and presently his will be the con- 
structive hand shaping the world in which 
he shall then live. For that work he must 
have a good will, and many kinds of dis- 
crimination and skill. He must have in- 
sight, training, and character. In other 
words, he must have an education and 
evangelism which will enable him to un- 
derstand the world, to use the world, and 
to serve the world. 

This does not mean to make a city boy 
of him, nor to bring city ideas or ways 
to him, that is, to turn the farms into a 
suburban district. It means a far better 
thing than that. It means leadership and 
resources put at the service of this prince 
of producers, which shall develop him 
according to his own type. He must have 
a balanced personality, humanly complete, 
socially efficient, that is a servant of all. 

The International Young Men’s Chris- 
tian Association through its department 


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skogq ‘ANVdWO%) TINA, HLaNOY 


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‘apeslig ojiy skog uoleyeg Jojsoyoueypy “SHONONT, ONIHSV\\ epestig eV] SAO UOleeg Jojsoyoueyy  “SNOLLYY SNIMVAC 


. 4 








Boys’ Life Brigade 


of rural work has begun a systematic plan 
to furnish Christian leadership and or- 
ganization for country boys. They work 
through Sunday schools and local groups, 
and help them to organize for Bible study, 
athletic sports, corn-growing contests, and 
the like. Rural Manhood is the organ of 
this movement, and Henry Israel, 124 
East 28th street, New York, N. Y., is 


secretary. W. J. Murcon. 
Reference: 
McKeever, W. A. Farm Boys and 
Girls. (New York, 1913.) 


BOYS’ LIFE BRIGADE (GREAT 
BRITAIN).—The Boys’ Life Brigade was 
founded in 1899 by the late Dr. J. B. 
Paton of Nottingham and earnestly com- 
mended by him to the care of the Sunday 
School Union, which adopted it as a de- 
partment of its work with boys from 
twelve to eighteen years of age. (See 
Sunday School Union, London.) 

The founders, recognizing the restless 
activity and militant instincts of youth 
and realizing that these natural tend- 
encies, if rightly directed, are factors in 
the development of true Christian manli- 
ness and in the making of the best type of 
citizen, instituted the movement to attract 
the boy and hold before him lofty ideals. 

The constitution states: “The objects of 
the Brigade are to lead our boys to the 
service of Christ; to train them for an 
active, disciplined and useful manhood ; to 
promote habits of self-respect, obedience, 
courtesy and helpfulness to others, and all 
that makes for a manly Christian char- 
acter. These objects shall be sought 
chiefly by means of drill, not associated 
with the use of arms, but with instruc- 
tion and exercises in the saving of life 
from fire, from drowning and from acci- 
dent.” 

The dominant note of the Brigade is 
Infe saving. The course of instruction 
prepares the boy for helpful service to 
others, affords pleasant and wholesome ex- 
ercise for body and brain, and gives that 
moral discipline which comes from the 
practice of obedience, self-respect and 
mutual trust, which are necessary in effect- 
ive drill. 

The B.L.B. is not merely something 
which attracts the boy and keeps him out 
of mischief. From the moment he comes 
within its sphere of influence he is im- 


173 


Boys’ Life Brigade 


pressed with the high ideals of service by 
which its members are inspired. The sub- 
jects which find a place in the syllabus 
stamp indelibly upon the boy’s mind this 
feeling of helpfulness to others. He 
catches the spirit of the thing and dili- 
gently prepares himself for the time when 
he too can “save life” or render “first aid.” 
So keen does a lad become that he will 
carry about with him bandages and other 
simple apparatus to be prepared for 
emergencies. ‘Thousands of lads have been 
inspired with these high motives so that 
service and thought for others have be- 
come a habit, and the result is shown by 
the numbers who gain the Distinguished 
Service Diploma awarded for life saving 
and for prompt and skillful aid rendered 
in cases of serious accident. 

The local branch is called a company, 
commanded by a captain and leutenants, 
or in the case B. L. B. Scouts, a scout- 
master and assistant scoutmaster, with 
the minister of the church as chap- 
lain. Non-commissioned officers are pro- 
moted from among the boys. Three or 
more companies in a locality may combine 
to form a battalion. Larger districts are 
termed divisions, with a commissioner in 
charge. The whole is governed by an Ad- 
ministrative Council consisting of repre- 
sentatives of the divisions, battalions and 
The Sunday School Union. 

It 1s essentially Christian and Inter- 
denominational. Each company must be 
connected with a church, mission or other 
Christian organization, which is especially 
charged with seeing that the religious part 
of the work is consistently maintained, and 
that men of high personal character are 
appointed as officers. Every member 
must regularly attend Sunday school or 
the Company Bible class. The company 
is associated in every way possible with 
the general interest and worship of the 
church. If the connection between the 
boy and the church is maintained until he 
reaches nineteen or twenty years of age, 
the probability is that he may be retained 
all his life. Apart from the moral and 
spiritual gain to the boy, the church gains 
greatly from the formation of a company. 

What is Taught. 

First Aid. 

Flag Signalling (Semaphore and Morse) 

Squad and Company Drill (without the 
use of the rifle). 


Boys’ Life Brigade 


Stretcher Drill. 

Knot Tying and Splicing. 

Physical Exercises. 

Gymnastics. 

Swimming. 

Life Saving from Water. 

Instrumental Music (flute, pe trumpet 
and brass bands). 

Life Saving from Fire. 

Cycling and Map Reading. 

Pioneer Work. 

Transport Work. 

Scouting. 

The whole syllabus of instruction is not 
taken in the course of one or two sessions. 
More is not attempted than can be really 
done well; want of thoroughness is one of 
the evils of the age, and the boys are 
taught to take pride in the quality rather 
than the quantity of the work done. Arm 
badges are awarded for efficiency in 
each subject. The best portion of what is 
termed “scouting” forms part of the 
B.L.B. work and is usually reserved for 
the summer months. The outdoor pur- 
suits include sports (cricket, football, 
swimming, etc.), country rambles with 
nature study, route marches, flag signal- 
ling, pioneer, transport and cycling work. 
Summer camps are very popular and have 
proved the means of permanently influ- 
encing the boys for good. 

Much that the B.L.B. does cannot be 
recorded; the possibilities can only be sug- 
gested as regards some aspects of the boy’s 
life during his membership. Usually the 
officers are not much older than the boy; 
they are to him as elder brothers, caring 
for every phase of his being—physical, 
mental, spiritual. If the boy is in trouble, 
he goes to them; if he is ill the officers 
visit him, and they rejoice with the boy 
when fortune smiles upon him. There is 
nothing touching the life of the boy in 
which his officers are not greatly inter- 
ested. 

Uniforms and Expenses. 'The boys’ 
uniform, which is worn over the ordinary 
clothing, is simple, effective and inex- 
pensive. It consists of a forage cap bear- 
ing a red cross in front, a white haversack 
and a black leather waist belt with the 
B.L.B. crest on the brass buckle in front. 
The outfit costs 2/44. 

In the scouting section the uniform con- 
sists of navy blue shorts and shirt, a B. P. 
hat, with shoulder knots, neckerchiefs or 


174 


The 


" 


ties of the patrol color. The cost depends 
upon the number of articles adopted, but 
the boys themselves should pay the greater 
part. 

The officers’ uniform is neat and effec- 
tive. 
pattern may be worn if desired. 

The formation of a company of forty 
lads entails an expenditure of about £6. 
The lads usually pay an entrance fee and 
a weekly subscription. Officers pay 2/- and 
the company 5/- per year to headquarters. 

The headquarters are situated in the 
Sunday School Union premises. ‘The offi- 
cial organ is the life Brigade Chronicle, 
which is published monthly. Suitable 
handbooks at low prices, together with all 
necessary forms of certificates, medals, 
badges, sketches, music, ete., are issued. 
Advice, and a packet of useful literature, 
may be secured post free from The Brig- 
ade Secretary, The Boys’ Life Brigauee 56 
Old Bailey, London, E.C. 

Fails Moroan. 

Reference: 

B. L. B. Scout Handbook. 1914, 
Boys’ Life Brigade Code. (London, 
1914.) 


BOYS, MEN TEACHERS FOR.—Older 
boys and young men do not want women 
teachers. ‘Their objection is based on a 
sound psychological law, generally recog- 
nized but not always followed. When a 
boy is a child, a woman is his best teacher, 
but when he puts behind him the years of 
childhood and enters on his adolescent 
years he needs the friendship and guid- 
ance of a man. A man knows the boy’s 
experiences better than a woman, because 
he has been a boy himself. Consequently 
he can sympathize with him better during 
his years of storm and stress. A boy needs 
companionship; he longs for a comrade 
in whom he can confide. Such a comrade 
must be able to enter into all his activities. 
For this comradeship a woman is limited, 
but a man can be and do all that the boy 
wants. 

Moreover, the boy is forming ideals; ; he 
is molding himself according to some 
standard. Certain qualities of his char- 
acter are helped from association with fine 
women, but as he is to become a man and 
not a woman, so his final ideal must be 
a man. Here again the man as teacher 
has more influence than a woman. 


Boys, Men Teachers for 


Uniform clothing of the official 


en ee? 


‘ 
¥ 


Bradbury 


| 
| 
. 


Some women make first-class teachers 
of boys of the teen age, yet even the best 


of them are limited where a man is not. 


Camping, hiking, baseball, and other 
forms of athletics, most of a boy’s sports 


which offer such a great opportunity to 


_ the teacher for close fellowship and influ- 


ence outside the class hour—these are 
activities which are foreign to a woman. 
| Those who are familiar with them cannot 
enter into them. Yet it is this kind of 
_eontact with boys which makes a teach- 


er’s work most effective. So that in the 


' teaching of the lesson, in the personal 


association of teacher and class, in the 
ideals held before the boys, the man’s 
point of view, influence and character are 


essential in a teacher of boys. 


S. A. WESTON. 
BRADBURY, WILLIAM BATCHEL- 


| DER.—Srz Hymn WRITERS AND Com- 
_ Posers OF S. S. Music. 


AMONG THE; 


BRAHMANISM.—SeExr Hinpus, Mora 
AND RELIcGIous EDUCATION OF CHILDREN 
Non-CHRISTIAN SocRIP- 


-TuRES; Retigious EnucatTion, ANCIENT, 
_ History or. 


BRAZIL IDEA.—William E. Carpenter 
of Brazil, Indiana, gave this idea to the 
Sunday-school world. Through an expe- 
rience of twenty-five years as superintend- 


ent, by consecration and careful applica- 
tion, plans were developed by which he 
succeeded in building up a phenomenally 


large organization. 
At one time one half of all the men, 


women, and children in the city were en- 
_Tolled in his school, which presented the 


largest enrollment in the world. 


The 


largest Cradle Roll and Men’s Bible class 


in the world were also recorded. These 


_ are the remarkable features in the history 


_ of the school from the numerical side. 


evangelistic 


As 
a spiritual force the school has always been 
in purpose and method, 


_ gathering each year scores of children and 
great numbers of men and women into 


“Brazil Idea.” 


_ the membership of the church. 


_ Out of these activities has grown the 
The fundamental spirit- 
ual principle is the persistent presentation 
of the claims of Jesus Christ. This 
proved to be the dynamic for solving the 


problem of attendance and was adopted as 


175 


Brazil Idea 


a school policy. A high spiritual stand- 
ard was set before the teachers and offi- 
cers. Fruitfulness was the measure of effi- 
ciency. All perilous amusements and 
whatever else threatened to hinder the 
highest usefulness and the exercise of the 
most potent influence for Christ and the 
spiritual life were discouraged. 

The school prepared to undertake a pro- 
gram of activity. This the superintend- 
ent was able to furnish. He had a phi- 
losophy of a large enrollment which was 
applied in the building up of the school. 
For expansion and growth there must be 
extension of the field of activity. New 
ground where the influence of the school 
has not gone must be preémpted. This 
was done by visitation, enrolling mem- 
bers in the Home Department and Cradle 
Roll. Then the process of assimilation 
became active and the new field was 
charted as a part of the school. 

The importance of this is seen further 
in the fact that beyond the large enroll- 
ment was a loyal constituency which could 
be depended upon for special days and for 
any undertaking demanding an increase 
of numbers and enthusiasm. Reserve 


. power is demanded by an organization. 


If the superintendent has the skill to or- 
ganize highly, until he passes from or- 
ganization to organism, he will count 
much upon his reserve forces for great 
undertakings. The larger his enrollment, 
the greater his reserve; also the larger the 
field within which his assimilative enter- 
prise may operate. The more he calls 
upon these forces for action the stronger 
they become. In them rests the life of his 
school, for life can be no stronger than its 
assimilative powers. 

The application of this philosophy of a 
large enrollment involved the working 
out of a careful program. It was evident 
that a plan was necessary for any achieve- 
ment. This was presented, not in elabo- 
rate detail, but in such manner as to seem 
within the reach of almost any school. It 
was conceived of as a doubling process and 
worked out in the following propositions: 
(1) The doubling of the enrollment; (2) 
The doubling of the attendance; (3) The 
doubling of the contributions; (4) The 
doubling of the teaching efficiency; (5) 
The doubling of the number of church 
members in the school. 

By carefully marshaling the different 


Brazil, 8. S. Work in 


departments in a campaign, this program 
was carried out. So successful was the 
campaign that every line of extension 
undertaken was more than realized, The 
school grew until the report of the work 
was spread abroad and has proved a great 
inspiration to others: first, because it 
demonstrated what a Sunday school could 
do in the average city; secondly, because 
it furnished the program by which the 
achievement could be accomplished. (See 
Advertising the S. S.; Recruiting the 


S. S., Methods of.) Oo Wareztna. 


BRAZIL, SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 
IN.—The introduction of the Sunday 
school into Brazil is coincident with the 
advent of the Protestant evangelical mis- 
sionary movement in this country. Per- 
manent missionary work in Brazil dates 
from about the year 1860. An independ- 
ent missionary from Scotland came to Rio 
de Janeiro in 1855; the Presbyterian 
Board (North) entered the field in 1859; 
the Presbyterian Church (South) 1869; 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
1876; the Southern Baptist Convention, 
1882; and the Protestant Episcopal 
Church of America, 1889. Other 
smaller and independent bodies have be- 
gun work at different periods. All of 
these missions in their earliest stages 
organized Sunday schools and have relied 
upon them as an efficient means of reli- 
gious propaganda, and an indispensable 
adjunct in their work of instructing and 
building up the native church in the 
knowledge of the Bible. 

The first attempt to organize a national 
Sunday-school convention, or union, was 
made about the year 1909. Delegates were 
sent to the World’s Sixth Sunday School 
Convention at Washington, D. C., 1910. 
The World’s Sunday School Association 
sent a representative to visit South Amer- 
ica in the year 1911, when the Brazilian 
National Sunday School Union was more 
definitely organized and interest was awak- 
ened in promoting state or district con- 
ventions; several of these have been held 
in four different sections, with great inter- 
est and advantage to the cause. 

The Sunday school as reported to the 
World’s Seventh Convention at Ziirich, 
1913, had attained the numerical growth 
of 716 schools, with 1,767 officers and 
teachers, and 19,681 pupils, a total mem- 


176 


it 
Brazil, 8. S. Work in 


bership of 21,448. This is an encouraging 
development when one remembers the dif- 
ficulties and limitations under which the 
work has been accomplished, and the 
further fact that, apart from the Lutheran 
and Anglican communions which minister 
solely to German and British commu- 
nities, the evangelical forces in Brazil 
number only about 225 ordained preach- 
ers, and about 35,000 church members. 

The British and Foreign and the Amer- 
ican Bible Societies actively entered the 
field about the middle of the last century, 
and are circulating the Scriptures in con- 
stantly increasing numbers. They now 
put into circulation throughout the Re- 
public about 125,000 copies annually. 

On the whole, the Bible and the Sun- 
day school have been well received, and 
have found a congenial atmosphere in 
Brazil in which to increase and expand. 
However, convention work needs to be de- 
veloped, improved and extended through- 
out the whole country. 

Brazil has a population of about 21,- 
000,000 which is scattered over a territory 
equal in area to that of the United States 
of America. Three distinct racial ele- 
ments have mingled together to form the 
present Brazilian nation—the aborigines, 
or Indians; the Portuguese; and the 
African. In the process many have main- 
tained their purity of race, but large num- 
bers have intermarried and amalgamation 
has been going on freely for four centuries. 
The descendants of the Portuguese con- 
stitute the largest single unmixed element, 
but the mixed element, resulting from 
amalgamation, is the most numerous of 
all. Other racial elements, as Italian, 
German, etc., in later years have been 
coming in freely. | 

The intellectual, social, and religious 
influences and institutions operative in 
the life of the nation have not been of a 
character to produce the best results. The 
Bible and the Sunday school have not 
been among the agencies active in the 
formation of Brazilian life and character; 
hence the illiteracy, immorality, and su- 
perstition so often referred to by those 
who write of the Brazilians. It is esti- 
mated about 65 per cent or 70 per cent of 
the entire population cannot read. Moral 
standards are generally low, and the con- 
science undeveloped or vitiated. Many 
still follow the idolatrous and supersti- 


Brazil, 8. S. Work in 


tious religious practices due to their 


origin; others accept the religious posi- 


tions and theories that have been de- 
veloped in the absence or the exclusion of 
the Bible; others still, in large numbers 
among the educated classes, through the 
enlightening nonreligious influences of 
modern civilization and progress have be- 
come altogether indifferent to the claims 
of any religion whatever. A limited 
number, however, are faithful and obe- 
dient to whatever light and truth they 
may have received. 

For the first three and a half centuries 


_ of the history of the country the nation 





was without the Bible. During this long 
period of the young country’s life the 
people were taught, if they heard of it at 
all, that the Bible was not for the people 


_ but exclusively for the priests. They were 


threatened with excommunication if they 
dared attempt to read it. When a few 
years ago the Bible societies began to offer 
the Scriptures to the people in the Portu- 
guese tongue, many copies were burned 
and destroyed in the presence of large 
crowds gathered for the express purpose of 
this auto de fe. Efforts were made to im- 
press the masses that the Bible of the 
Protestants was a dangerous book, full of 
errors. 

These facts alone are all the justifica- 
tion that evangelical Christianity needs 
for its endeavor to enter the country with 
the Bible and the Sunday school. These 


- conditions constitute Brazil’s appeal to 
_ the Christian Church in this day of world- 


wide missionary expansion, 

The Sunday school in Brazil has a lim- 
ited literature and equipment. ‘T'wo de- 
nominations publish, each in separate 


_ form, lesson helps for adults and also a 


_ juvenile paper for children; several others 
_ publish lesson helps in their weekly 


_ church papers. 


The first manual of any 


_ kind for normal Sunday-school class work, 


and the training and preparation of 
teachers is in course of preparation. 
Though as yet there are no blank books for 


- class and departmental records, no charts 


and maps, and indeed no Sunday-school 
supplies and equipment worthy of men- 


_ tion, the people are grateful for what is 
_ available and make good use of all that is 
furnished them. There is a growing need 


for a Sunday-school hymnal. The Brazil- 


lan children and young people sing the 


hag 


Brazil, 8. §. Work in 


Sunday-school songs and Church hymns 
with enthusiasm and thrilling effect. 

Through the interest of the World’s 
Sunday School Association and the kind- 
ness of Sunday-school editors and publish- 
ers in the United States, quite a collec- 
tion of samples of Sunday-school liter- 
ature, supplies, and equipment has been 
secured at the national headquarters in 
Rio de Janeiro, though not in the Portu- 
guese language. Brazil needs an adequate 
supply of well-adapted literature and Sun- 
day-school supplies, wise leadership, better 
organization and coordination. 

(a) Brazil, like other countries of South 
America, is just now in its childhood. 
Vast undeveloped natural resources, min- 
eral wealth, agricultural possibilities, and 
innumerable waterfalls waiting to furnish 
electricity for all manner of industrial 
enterprises, constitute resources that must 
make the country even greater in power 
and wealth than it is in territorial ex- 
tent. Brazil needs now and will need 
more and more the social ideals and teach- 
ings of Jesus Christ in order to solve these 
problems. ‘The young members of the 
rising generation must be rightly related 
to God and to each other. 

(b) Brazil is likewise in the childhood 
of her political and national life. Only 
a few years ago the first serious attempt 
to establish a new form of government was 
begun. The old order was done away with, 
the yoke of priestcraft was thrown off, and 
the new Republic was born. This is the 
period of the formation of national ideas, 
and the assimilation of new thought. New 
legislation and new laws are required. 
The country enjoys an increasing recog- 
nition by the leading nations of the world. 
A new national consciousness is being 
created and must be Christianized. 

Another significant fact that adds still 
greater emphasis to the appeal is the in- 
terest being awakened in the welfare and 
education of children. A wealthy Brazil- 
ian, himself a student of the Bible, has. 
recently founded in the city of Rio de 
Janeiro, a great hospital and free clinics 
for children; and there are other private 
and public institutions and movements for 
improving the conditions of child life. 
Public and private schools are increas- 
ing; and the one theme enjoying the at- 
tention and codperation of all is the edu- 
cation of the masses, Within the last few 


Brethren, Church of the 


months, for the first time, the medical 
examination of public-school children has 
been seriously considered by public men 
and provision is being made to extend this 
important service. 

A City Mission and the Young Men’s 
Christian Association united in an effort 
to interest the Municipal authorities and 
citizens of Rio de Janeiro in securing the 
first really modern playground for chil- 
dren in South America. The idea has 
interested a number of influential people 
and the movement is spreading. ‘The first 
lessons in the proper care of their teeth 
were given to children in this City Mis- 
sion, and plans are now being considered 
to extend the instruction through the pub- 
lic schools. 

These secular educational movements 
and clinics will be far-reaching in their 
beneficent effects upon the rising genera- 
tion. However, the great majority of the 
teachers do not know the Bible and their 
lives and teaching are almost wholly un- 
influenced by the message of Jesus Christ. 
Hence the demand for the Sunday school 
and the appeal for its indispensable work 
in the moral and religious training of 
these children is very great. The defi- 
ciency or absence of adequate moral and 
religious training in Brazilian homes sup- 
ples another strong argument in favor 
of making the Sunday school as extensive 


as possible. H. C. Tucker. 


BRETHREN, CHURCH OF THE, SUN- 
DAY-SCHOOL WORK OF THE.—What is 
now known as the Church of the Brethren 
had its beginning at Schwarzenau, Ger- 
many, in 1708. Since that time it has 
been known as “Tunkers,” “Dunkards,” 
“German Baptist Brethren,” “The Breth- 
ren,” ete. 

Being opposed to liturgics and creeds 
from its very beginning, it naturally 
placed great emphasis on the Word of 
God. This fact alone caused them to be 
eager to teach the Word to their children 
and to all others so far as lay within 
their power. Hence, as early as 1738, or 
earlier, they had a Sunday school at 
Germantown, now a part of the city of 
Philadelphia, Pa. 

Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh, Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction, Philadel- 
phia, Pa., in his History of the German 
Baptist Brethren in Europe and America, 


178 


Brethren, Church of the 


pages 180 and 181, says, “There is evi- 
dence to justify the claim that the Ger- 
mantown congregation had a Sabbath 
school before 1738. The meeting for the 
unmarried held every Sunday afternoon 
was doubtless a Sunday school. Ludwig 
Hocker may have been the leader of this 
meeting. In 1744, Christopher Saur 
printed a collection of 381 tickets, upon 
each one of which are a scriptural quota- 
tion and a stanza of religious poetry by 
Gerhard ‘Tersteegen. These evidently 
were used in the Brethren’s Sunday school. 
A set of these tickets in excellent con- 
dition is now in my possession.” 

On page 464 of the same history, he 
says, “As early as 1748, Ludwig Hoecker 
(gq. v.) . . . organized a Sabbath school, 
and maintained it fully thirty years be- 
fore Robert Raikes founded his first Sun- 
day school. For this school Hoecker had 
a house erected in 1749 . . . The Breth- 
ren may, therefore, justly claim to be 
the founders of Sunday schools. No sect 
ever devoted more care to the proper 
training of its children than did the early 
Brethren.” (See First Sunday Schools.) 

From this early beginning the Sunday- 
school work of the church was carried 
on without any general organization by 
authority of Conference until 1896, when 
a Sunday-School Advisory Committtee of 
three members was appointed, to have 
a general supervisory care of the work. 

From about the year 1880 the Sunday- 
school work began to move by leaps 
and bounds. The result was that there 
began to be felt a need for a more thor- 
ough organization of the forces of the 
church. This resulted in the appoint- 
ment of a General Sunday School Board 
of five members, with the Sunday-school 
Editor of the Brethren Publishing House, 
Elgin, Ill., as General Secretary. This 
Board was appointed in 1911 by the 
Annual Conference and supersedes the 
Sunday-School Advisory Committee. Its 
office is in Elgin, Ill. ) 

Under the General Sunday School 
Board, there are about fifty-five District 
Secretaries, who have charge of the 
work in their respective Districts as 
directed by the Board. These District 
Secretaries are the Departmental Super- 
intendents in their various fields. 

The growth and development of the 
Sunday-school literature of the church 








British and Foreign Bible Society 


is a most interesting study. Beginning 
with the 381 tickets, mentioned above, 
and allowing for a period when there 
was no literature, it has grown until there 
is now a full line of helps, such as, 
teachers’ monthly, quarterlies, Sunday- 
school papers, song books, ete., etc., em- 
bracing all that is necessary for a work- 
ing Sunday school, A series of graded 
lessons is now being worked out. These 
publications are all issued by the Brethren 
Publishing House, Elgin, III. 

The General Sunday School Board 
has recently published a First Standard 
Teacher Training Book, entitled, Train- 
‘ing the Sunday-school Teacher. They 
have writers working on a set of books 
for the Second Standard Course. The 
Board also publishes a line of booklets 
‘on various Sunday-school topics. These 
booklets are distributed free, and contain 
about 3,000 words each. 

The Sunday-school Editor is responsi- 
ble for all the Sunday-school literature. 
In this he is aided by an assistant editor 
and a corps of seven departmental writers. 

Finally, the General Sunday School 
Board and the Sunday-school Editor aim 
to emphasize and foster everything that 
legitimately enters into successful reli- 
gious education and Sunday-school work. 

I. B. Trout. 


BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SO- 
CIETY.—Srr Brisue Society, BritisH 
AND ForEIan. 


BRITISH COLUMBIA.—Sere Cawnapa, 
History orf THE AssociaTED S. 8S. Work 
IN THE DOMINION OF. 


BRITISH GRADED LESSONS.—Szrx 
GRADED Lessons, BrivisH. 


_ BRITISH INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL 
SERVICE.—SeE Cuinp WELFARE MoveE- 
‘MuENT (ENGLAND). 


BRITISH SECTION OF THE INTER- 
NATIONAL LESSON COMMITTEE.—Ser 
Lrsson CoMMITTEE, BriTIsH SECTION OF 
‘THE, 

BRITISH SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION.— 
See Sunpay Scuoot Union, Lonpon. 


BROADUS, JOHN ALBERT (1827- 
95).—A distinguished minister and 
educator. He was born in Culpeper 


179 


Broadus 


County, Va. He was graduated, in 1850, 
from the University of Virginia with the 
degree of M. A. Dr. Broadus was Assist- 
ant Professor of Ancient Languages in 
the University of Virginia from 1851 to 
1853, and from 1855 to 1857, he was 
Chaplain of the University. From 1851 
to 1859, with the exception of two years, 
Dr. Broadus was pastor of the Baptist 
Church in Charlottesville, Va., the seat of 
the University, and from 1859 to his death 
in 1895, he served as professor in the 
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. 
For almost all of this long term of service 
he filled at the same time two chairs in 
the Seminary—homiletics and New Testa- 
ment interpretation. He served country 
churches in South Carolina and Ken- 
tucky, in connection with his work as a 
teacher of theological students. In 1863 
he did much preaching in Lee’s Army. 
He spent the year 1870-71 abroad, visit- 
ing Europe and Bible Lands. When in 
1877, the Seminary was removed from 
Greenville, 8S. C., he went with it to Louis- 
ville, Ky. 

Dr. Broadus was in great demand as a 
preacher, especially during the last twenty 
years of his life. He dedicated many new 
churches, preached commencement. ser- 
mons and acted as supply pastor in promi- 
nent pulpits during the summer months. 
He was a great preacher and a great 
teacher. Among his many important 
books may be named: Preparation and 
Delivery of Sermons; Commentary on 
Matthew; History of Preaching; Har- 
mony of the Gospels; Jesus of Nazareth ; 
Memotr of James P. Boyce, and Sermons 
and Addresses. 

After the death of Dr. Boyce in 1888, 
Dr. Broadus was elected President of the 
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 
in which office he served for seven years. 

Dr. Broadus was a friend of the Sun- 
day school throughout his life. During 
the Civil War he became corresponding 
secretary of the Sunday School Board at 
Greenville, S. C., an office which he filled 
from 1863 to 1866. The publications of 
the Board were on the poorest quality of 
Confederate paper, but the contents of the 
books and periodicals were of unusual 
excellence. It is said that about 100,000 
copies of these books prepared by Dr. 
Basil Manly, Jr., Dr. Jas. P. Boyce, and 
others were sold, 


Broadus 


In 1878 Dr. Broadus was chosen as a 
member of the International Lesson Com- 
mittee, and remained a member until his 
death in 1895. From the first meeting 
with the Lesson Committee he had the 
respect and confidence of his associates as 
a scholar of wide and accurate learning 
and as a Christian personality of rare 
charm. Dr. Broadus was one of the finest 
New Testament scholars in America, and 
all his learning he gladly placed at the 
disposal of the Sunday schools of the 
world in connection with the work of the 
Lesson Committee. He was exceedingly 
practical and wise in all his work. He 
knew the needs of the great constituency 
to which the Lesson Committee ministers, 
and sought to improve the lesson selec- 
tions, without breaking away from the 
average teacher and pupil by making the 
work too difficult 

Toward the close of his life he gave 
much time in the effort to improve the 
International Lesson System, which was 
then under sharp criticism. As it was 
thought desirable to select connective 
readings to link the separate lessons more 
closely, Dr. Broadus was requested by the 
Lesson Committee in 1893 to examine the 
lessons already agreed upon for 1894 and 
1895, and to suggest such additional read- 
ings as would give fuller views on the sub- 
jects to be studied. In March, 1894, the 
Lesson Committee deemed it wise to ap- 
point a subcommittee to prepare a tenta- 
tive scheme of lessons, to be used at the 
next meeting of the Committee, to ex- 
pedite the selection of lessons. Up to 
that time individual members had made 
such notes as they might find time to pre- 
pare; but most of the work was done by 
the entire Committee in the annual meet- 
ing. From 1894 to the present time the 
Lesson Committee has always appointed 
subcommittees to prepare and distribute 
provisional drafts of all lessons to be 
issued, 

Dr. John A. Broadus, Dr. A. E. Dun- 
ning and Dr. Warren Randolph (gq. v.) 
were appointed to prepare a provisional 
draft of lessons for 1897. The work was 
carefully wrought out by Dr. Broadus and 
accepted by his two colleagues. The les- 
sons were entitled “Studies in the Acts 
and the Epistles.” Scarcely any changes 
were even proposed by members of the 
Committee. This was the last work of 


180 


groups of their respective churches. 


Brotherhood Movement 


Dr. Broadus for the Lesson Committee, 
his death occurring soon after. 
J. R. SAMPEY. 
Reference: 
Robertson, A. T. Life and Letters 
of John Albert Broadus. (Philadel- 
phia, 1908.) 


BROTHERHOOD IN THE CHURCH OF 
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.—Serxr 
BROTHERHOOD MOVEMENT. 


BROTHERHOOD MOVEMENT.—As a 
modern vehicle for the expression of virile 
Christianity and for emphasizing the 
distinctly masculine appeal of religion, the 
church brotherhood movement in its or- 
ganized expression, has a history of less 
than thirty years. 

This quarter-century of growth and de- 
velopment, and of efficient functioning 
with the church, extends only to three 
of the brotherhoods—that of St. Andrew, 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church, has 
a continuous record since 1883; the in- 
terdenominational Brotherhood of Andrew 
and Philip, which, twenty-five years ago 
projected the idea of the “Federal Coun- 
cil” plan of administration and control in 
men’s work, and was the forerunner of 
the denominational brotherhood; and the 
several bodies of men in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, notably the brother- 
hoods of St. Paul and Wesley, which had 
a history of about twenty years prior to 
their merger, in 1908, into The Methodist 
Brotherhood. All of the other denomina- 
tional brotherhoods are of recent origin. 

In 1906, two came into corporate being, 
the Men’s League (now the Brotherhood) 
of the United Presbyterian Church, and 
the Presbyterian Brotherhood. Two were 
organized in 190%—the Baptist Brother- 
hood, and the League of Universalist Lay- 
men. In 1908, four others were estab- 
lished, the Congregational, Methodist, 
Disciples of Christ (Christian Brother- 
hood), and the Brotherhood of the Presby- 
terian Church in the United States 
(Southern Presbyterian Brotherhood). 
The Lutheran, Otterbein (United 
Brethren), and the Unitarian men’s move- 
ments were founded in 1909. 

In at least thirteen of the Protestant 
Christian communions, the men are united 
for service as members of the brotherhood 
This, 


Brotherhood Movement 


however, does not adequately indicate the 
full strength of the Brotherhood move- 
ment, for in several of the communions 
that are without denominational societies 
for men, the men are leagued in chapters 
of the interdenominational Brotherhood 
of Andrew and Philip. This is notably 
so in the Reformed Church. Also, there 
are chapters of The Methodist Brother- 
hood in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, and the Methodist Protestant 
Church. It may be said that the brother- 
hood idea has organized expression in 
twenty-four communions, The number 
of members of the brotherhoods in all of 
these denominations is estimated at about 
550,000. 

Confronting the Brotherhood movement 
from the beginning were at least seven 
great problems: 

(1) There was the slow but steady de- 
erease of men in the membership roster 
of the churches and in attendance on its 
services. This suggested and emphasized 
the necessity for laying stress upon organ- 
ized masculine Christianity and showed 
the importance of articulating the gospel 
program more definitely with modern life. 
(2) There was a dearth of men and a de- 
creasing attendance of boys in the Sun- 
day school. The teaching and child-cul- 
ture functions of the school were almost 
altogether in the hands of the women. 
The spiritual decline among boys of the 
adolescent age and among those just en- 
tering into manhood’s estate was appall- 
ing. Adequate provision for the nurture 
and development of the religious life of 
boys and young men, based on a working 
knowledge of psychology and pedagogy, 
was to be found only in rare instances. 
(3) There was a woful lack of candidates 
for the Christian ministry. (4) There 
was a steady growth of fraternities, phi- 
lanthropic and humanitarian societies, 
unions, and associations, most of them es- 
sentially ethical and moral in character, 
and many of them Christian in purpose, 
which were attracting hosts of men and 
serving them as substitutes for the Chris- 
tian Church. (5) There was often the 
absence of the heroic, the masterful and 
the peculiarly masculine element in the 
evangelistic appeal and the large field for 
achievement which the church and reli- 
gion provide for men was seldom set forth 
in the terms of modern thought and ac- 


181 


Brotherhood Movement 


tion. (6) In the matter of local church 
finances there was a striking absence of 
business methods and a growing disposi- 
tion to allow the minister and the women 
to provide and care for the temporal and 
material affairs of the church plant. (7) 
There was also apparent a_ hesitancy 
among the men of the church to express 
their religion in personal terms—to en- 
gage in that form of religious service 
which is generally expressed as “personal 
work.” 

The activities of the brotherhoods were 
not restricted to these fields. As the 
movement advanced there came into range 
the necessity and opportunity for the ex- 
tension of religion into the social, indus- 
trial, and political realms, and soon the 
brotherhoods were definitely identified 
with the larger problems of life and labor. 
Social service, community betterment. 
civic righteousness, industrial justice and 
kindred subjects found their way into the 
program of the movement, which soon be- 
gan to function on the more comprehen- 
sive plane of service. 

Perhaps the earliest achievement of the 
brotherhoods was in their work in behalf 
of Bible study and in the interest of men’s 
classes in the Sunday school. Issuing 
from this work alone were scores of re- 
lated activities, all of which were sug- 
gested by the study of the Bible and the 
interpretation of its lessons in practical 
terms. : 

The problem of safeguarding, conserv- 
ing, and developing the adolescent boy 
was of especial appeal to the brotherhoods. 
Therefore, boys’? brotherhoods, or their 
equivalent, soon were formed as integral 
parts of the men’s brotherhoods; this was 
notably the case in the Brotherhood of 
St. Andrew. There are these junior 
groupings, also, in the Andrew and Philip, 
Congregational, Methodist, Lutheran, and 
Presbyterian brotherhoods, 

Civic affairs, good government move- 
ments and like causes which called for the 
translating of religion into effective social 
action, and work of a distinctly religious 
type, are provided for in the brotherhood 
programs. Not a few of the local chapters 
of the denominational movements were in- 
strumental in founding Sunday schools, 
and in nurturing them until they devel- 
oped into churches, 

Since the Men and Religion Forward 


- Brotherhood Movement 


Movement (q. v.), which was conducted 
jointly by the brotherhoods, the Inter- 
national Sunday School Association (q. 
v.), the Gideons (gq. v.), and the Interna- 
tional Committee of Young Men’s Chris- 
tian Associations, the brotherhoods have 
recast their work, standardizing their pro- 
grams with the following chief objectives 
of the Men and Religion Forward Move- 
ment: Evangelism, Bible study, boys’ work, 
social service, missions, community exten- 
sion. 

Brief sketches of the several denomina- 
tional brotherhoods are appended. 

The Brotherhood of St. Andrew, the 
pioneer among modern church brother- 
erhoods, is a society of men in the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church, with a junior 
department for older boys, It was organ- 
ized on St. Andrew’s day, 1883. It is gov- 
erned by a National Council of sixty men 
elected annually at the Brotherhood con- 
vention. Local chapters are in the par- 
ishes, 

There is no official connection between 
the authorities of the general church and 
the brotherhood organization, every mem- 
ber of the National Council and every 
employee of the brotherhood being a lay- 
man. St. Andrew’s Cross, the official 
organ of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, 
is published by the National Office which 
is under the control of the National Coun- 
cil. There has been a college committee 
for supervising the work in colleges 
throughout the United States. There 
has also been a traveling men’s committee 
for organizing and developing work among 
traveling brotherhood men, and there was 
for some time a junior department com- 
mittee. 

No work is undertaken except that com- 
monly known as personal evangelism; and 
there are but two rules, the “rule of 
prayer” and the “rule of service.” The 
“rule of prayer” is to pray daily for the 
spread of Christ’s kingdom among men, 
especially young men, and for God’s bless- 
ing upon the labors of the brotherhood. 
The “rule of service” is to make at least 
one earnest effort each week to lead some 
man nearer to Christ through his church. 
The brotherhood never engages in church 
work of any kind, however needed or 
praiseworthy, unless it involves work such 
as may be defined by these two rules. 

The minimum age for membership in 


182 


Brotherhood Movement 


the junior department is twelve, although 
there are very few members under four- 
teen, the average age being sixteen years. 
The members of the junior brotherhoods 
do among boys exactly the same work as 
the brotherhood men do among men. 
Entertainments of all kinds, social fea- 
tures, or the raising of money are for- 
bidden for fear that the real work might 
be neglected, or might give place to other 
forms of activity. 

The sole object of the Brotherhood of 
St. Andrew, both senior and junior, is to 
teach and train men and boys how to work 
in order to secure others and to insist that 
they do this in a definite, regular, and 
methodical manner. No work is counte- 
nanced except that which aims either at 
once, or ultimately, in church member- 
ship. The work is therefore of a restricted 
nature. It is also an intensely individual- 
istic society; its work in any given year 
being the sum of the efforts of the individ- 
ual members. The headquarters of the 
brotherhood are in Boston, Mass. 

The Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip 
had its origin in an organized Bible class 
of young men which was the nucleus of 
the first chapter organized in May, 1888, 
by the Rev. Rufus W. Miller, then asso- 
ciate pastor of the Second Reformed 
Church, Reading, Pa. “The name was 
suggested by a society of Andrew and 
Philip organized by the late Dr. Tyng in 
New York city, and its work was to invite 
men of the street to a supper and the 
evening service.” The brotherhood has 
taken root in twenty-four different de- 
nominations, growing slowly but steadily 
until it is to be found in all parts of the 
United States, in Canada, and in foreign 
countries, | 

Its fundamentals are the two rules of 
prayer and service and interdenomina- 
tional fellowship. The “rule of prayer” 
is to pray daily for the spread of Christ’s 
kingdom among men, and for God’s bless- 
ing upon the labors of the brotherhood. 
The “rule of service” is to make personal 
efforts to bring men and boys within the 
hearing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as” 
set forth in the services of the church, 
prayer meetings, and men’s Bible classes. 

While the brotherhood has a spiritual 
foundation and emphasizes the life of 
prayer and personal service, yet it does” 
not confine its activities to meetings for 


Brotherhood Movement 


prayer and Bible study. Recently the 
various lines of work were correlated and 
found to number over fifty. The brother- 
hood is interdenominational in that each 
chapter affiliates with chapters of other 
denominations for the purpose of fellow- 
ship, extension, and growth. The brother- 
hood is controlled by an International 
Council, composed of twenty-five laymen, 
and an Advisory Council of twenty-five 
clergymen. Headquarters are in Phila- 
delphia, Pa. 

The Methodist Brotherhood was organ- 
ized in March, 1908, by uniting the St. 
Paul and Wesley brotherhoods which had 
been in existence since about 1890. The 
united brotherhood was given official 
standing by the General Conference of 
1908. The general constitution provides 
for membership in the organization and 
representation on the Managing Board 


_ of “all men’s societies of ecumenical Meth- 


- odism.” 





of the 


This provided the opportunity 
for the three great divisions of Methodism 
to unify their men’s work, the brother- 
hood to be the codrdinating factor. The 
brotherhood board is composed of official 
members from each of the major divisions 
Methodist Episcopal Church 
throughout the world, and of the Meth- 


_odist Episcopal Church, South, together 
_with the usual complement of executive 


_ officers. 


activity. 
worth League and the Board of Sunday 
Schools the brotherhood conducts a work 


| 


among boys. 
_ chapters. 


| organized in 1906, 
_ cial society of the church by action of the 


The manual has been translated 
into the German, Italian, Russian, Fin- 
nish, and Swedish tongues. It contains 
the general and local constitutions, a small 
amount of ritual and suggested lines of 
In codperation with the Ep- 


There are about 1,300 
The headquarters are in New 
York city. 

Under the name of the Men’s League, 
the United Presbyterian Brotherhood was 
It was made an offi- 








| General Assembly, and is governed by an 
| Executive Council of twenty-one men. 
It recommends to the local groups the 
establishment and operation of eleven de- 


partments of service. ‘These departments 
are: (1) For promoting religious intelli- 
gence, including the circulation of liter- 
ature; (2) finance; (3) for promoting 
friendliness and for work among strangers 
and newcomers; (4) for promoting habits 


183 


Brotherhood Movement 


of personal and family prayer and Bible 
study, and also the work of the Sabbath 
school; (5) for promoting individual 
Christian effort, and for work among new 
converts; (6) for promoting neighborhood 
work, including special work among for- 
eigners; (7) for promoting attendance 
both of members and outsiders at the reg- 
ular church services; (8) for promoting 
reform; (9) for helping the sick and the 
poor; (10) for promoting intellectual de- 
velopment; (11) for work among young 
men and boys. The headquarters are in 
Pittsburgh, Pa. 

The Presbyterian Brotherhood was or- 
ganized at a convention held at Indian- 
apolis in November, 1906. The general 
plan of organization provides for a Na- 
tional Council of twenty-one members 
with the following functions: (1) To 
unify, inspire, and promote the movement 
at large; (2) to hold national and terri- 
torial conventions; (3) to provide a clear- 
ing house and bureau of information; 
(4) to publish brotherhood literature; (5) 
to effect, wherever practicable, synodical 
organizations, and to endeavor to increase 
their efficiency. 

For the local chapters there is recom- 
mended a constitution, the form of which 
is suggested, which advises the creation, in 
each chapter, of at least nine departments, 
viz.: (1) Bible study; (2) Christian serv- 
ice, (3) civic affairs, (4) social progress, 
(5) boys’ brotherhood, (6) denomina- 
tional interests, (7) publicity, (8) social 
and athletic affairs, and (9) budget and 
finance. There is also suggested a depart- 
ment of Brotherhood Extension. The 
handbook outlines generally the functions 
of each department. The headquarters 
are in Chicago, III. 

In the Northern Baptist Convention, 
no effort was made to federate the men’s 
organization until early in 1907, when 
the New England Baptist Brotherhood 
was formed and a committee appointed to 
advance the movement in the Baptist 
churches of the United States. The com- 
mittee’s plans were adopted by the Gen- 
eral Convention of the Baptists of North 
America at Jamestown, in May, 1907. In 
that year also the Northern Baptist Con- 
vention appointed a committee to organ- 
ize the brotherhood as a department of the 
church. The first general conference of 
the brotherhood was held in 1908. 


Brotherhood Movement 


Among the definite recommendations 
adopted are the following: That they 
make the Bible the corner stone of their 
organization ; that they develop from their 
membership lay preachers or speakers who 
shall actively engage in presenting the 
Gospel; that they form a local group 
whose business it shall be to win men to 
Christ by personal evangelism; that they 
provide definite means to secure men and 
money for missions; that they actively 
participate in social and political reform 
movements and bring the influence of 
their organizations to bear upon the ad- 
ministration of public affairs. In 1912 
the departments of brotherhood and social 
service were united. ‘Three things are 
being actively promoted: The organiza- 
tion of an active brotherhood in every 
church; the enlistment of the men in 
systematic study in the Scriptures, in 
church history, in missions, and in social 
service; and their active participation in 
all efforts for social and civic uplift. The 
headquarters are in Philadelphia, Pa. 

In 1907 the National Council of Con- 
gregational Churches appointed a com- 
mittee of twenty-nine to inaugurate a gen- 
eral brotherhood of the denomination. 
This led to the first Congregational 
Brotherhood gathering at Detroit in 1908, 
when the brotherhood was formally organ- 
ized. 

The brotherhood aggressively carried on 
its work from the beginning of its official 
life. Twenty states were organized; its 
literature became well and _ favorably 
known; by some form of service it brought 
into active partnership, through the chan- 
nels of the church, thousands of men who 
would have remained latent forces in the 
church and the community. It standard- 
ized a program and made it popular so 
that men’s work found new avenues of 
expression and new forms of activity. 
According to the report adopted by the 
National Council at Boston, “The Con- 
gregational Brotherhood is the local de- 
nominational expression of a world move- 
ment arising from the awakening of a new 
consciousness of human kinship.” 

By vote of the Council the Brotherhood 
was made a department of the Council 
and put under the jurisdiction of a special 
committee on Congregational Brother- 
hood. Also by formal vote of the Boston 
Council the Brotherhood was made “Ex- 


184 


Brotherhood Movement 


ecutive agency of the National Council in 
all matters pertaining to labor and social 
service, and at the suggestion of the Na- 
tional Council the Congregational Broth- 
erhood elected a secretary of labor and 
social service, who should represent the 
denomination in this field. 

At the meeting of the Council held in 
Kansas City in October, 1913, a Com- 
mission was appointed to take over the 
work of the Brotherhood, and elect a 
Secretary, to become the leader and repre- 
sentative of the denomination in all 
matters pertaining to social service, in- 
dustry, organized charity, country life, 
and men’s work. 

The Commission is divided into three 
subcommittees, each composed of three 
members, one subcommittee having spe- 
cial interest in industry, another in 
country life, and the third in the problem 
of organized charity. The Commission as 
a whole treats the general topics of social 
service, and gives its attention to the 
work of promoting the organization of the 
men of the churches for more efficient 
service. 

The action of the Council, in creating 
this Commission, in no way affects the 
work or the standing of the local and 
state brotherhoods. In the interest of 
simplified administration it seemed wise 
to commit the interests of the work of 
the men in the churches to this Commis- 
sion, and each state and local Brotherhood 
as well as other forms of men’s organiza- 
tions within the denomination will sus- 
tain the same relationship to the Com- 
mission as they have heretofore sustained 
to the Congregational Brotherhood of 
America. By vote of the National Broth- 
erhood the commission on social service 
was empowered to sign charters and per- 
form all the other functions it formerly 
exercised. Thus while the National 
Brotherhood as an organization has ceased 
to exist its work has been made a depart- 
ment of the National Council of the Con- 
gregational churches. 

The Commission seeks to realize the 
purposes of the Brotherhood by: 

1, Providing leaders, voluntary and 
executive, throughout the nation to serve 
the men and boys of the churches, 

2. By recognizing, enrolling, and stand- 
ardizing state, city, and local organiza- 
tions. | y 


Brotherhood Movement 


3. By maintaining a clearing house of 
information, and by publishing such lit- 
erature as will help the cause. 

4. By holding such conferences, state, 
local, and national, as may be deemed ad- 
visable, and such as will promote efficiency 
in organization and results. 

The Commission offers its services to 
all churches and other organizations. 

The National League of Universalist 
Laymen had: its inception at a meeting 
held in New York city, in May, 1906, at 
which plans were made for holding a Gen- 
eral Convention, which assembled in Phil- 
adelphia, October 26, 1907. There were 
present more than 200 delegates, nearly 
all laymen, representing 26 states, the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, and Canada. The 
League was there organized, with a po- 
tential membership of 6,000. The head- 
quarters are in Chicago, Ill. 

The Brotherhood in the Church of the 
Disciples of Christ was organized in 1908. 
An official communication from the 
brotherhood states that “the Disciples of 
Christ have been intensely evangelistic but 
have neglected education, and have only 
6,000 ministers to serve 11,000 congre- 
gations, The problem that is before the 
Disciples’ Brotherhood is to care for the 
6,000 churches without ministers until a 
professional ministry.can be recruited. 
For this reason emphasis is being laid 
‘upon the subject of personal evangelism 
and Bible study, almost to the exclusion of 
everything else. Pastors are being urged 
to train their men in Bible study and 
evangelism, and send them out to do per- 
sonal work and lay preaching. This effort 
is resulting in both saved individuals and 
saved churches. Many city churches are 
establishing missions, under the leader- 
‘ship of business men. One of the most 
notable is at Baltimore, Md., where six 
churches are manned by lay workers en- 
tirely.” 

The brotherhood has been instrumental 
In bringing about the practical unity of 
a number of National and State mission- 
ary societies, and likewise assisted mate- 
mally in the practical unification of 38 
educational institutions throughout the 
United States. The headquarters are in 
Kansas City, Mo. 

The Presbyterian Brother hood for Men 
of the Presbyterian Church in the United 
States (the Southern Presbyterian 


185 


Brotherhood Movement 


Church) was organized in 1908. Its gen- 
eral plan of organization and administra- 
tion is similar to that of the Presbyterian 
Brotherhood. The chapter work is done 
through the following committees: Bible 
study, prayer, Christian culture, missions, 
stewardship, extension, social work, per- 
sonal work, and religious meetings. The 
brotherhood is under the control of the 
General Assembly and is administered 
through the Department of Sabbath 
Schools and Young People’s Societies. 


, The headquarters of the Brotherhood are 


in Richmond, Va. 

The Lutheran Brotherhood was organ- 
ized in 1909. Later a junior brotherhood 
was created. In regard to its work it is 
officially reported that: 

“True to its mission, a Lutheran Broth- 
erhood will make its first object that of 
winning men into fellowship with Christ 
and the church. As an organization 
for service and not for its own sake, it has 
quickened the activity of many men in the 
various departments of local church work. 
In many congregations it has encouraged 
Bible study and identified men’s organized. 
Bible classes in close fellowship with the 
church. It has served as an organized 
agency by which the Laymen’s Mission- 
ary Movement is being made permanently 
effective to the missionary and benevolent 
boards of the church. It has given to 
many pastors and congregations a loyal 
band of men on whom they can depend 
for active local church work. It hag 
permeated many of the social, athletic, 
and educational organizations of the 
church with a distinctly religious and 
churchly spirit. In the true spirit of 
brotherhood it is giving to men in every 
condition of life, especially in times of 
trial, the stimulus of Christian comrade- 
ship and the inspiration that comes from 
association with men of kindred aims. 
With commendable denominational loy- 
alty; by the circulation and study of its 
distinctive literature; the fostering of its 
educational institutions, and the support- 
ing of its various boards, it aims to pro- 
mote the prosperity and power of the Lu- 
theran Church.” The headquarters are in 
Louisville, Ky. 

In 1906 at a Bible conference at Day- 
ton, Ohio, the men’s movement was first 
notably indicated as necessary in the 
United Brethren Church. This interest 


Brotherhood Movement 


culminated in 1909, when the General 
Conference gave official recommendation 
to the men’s organization under the name 
of the Otterbein Brotherhood. The result 
was a correlation of men’s work with the 
Sunday school and Christian Endeavor 
Society under a Board of Control, and 
the new movement at once became a fed- 
eration of all the men’s societies in the 
denomination. 

The brotherhood objectives are: (1) To 
encourage the brotherhood spirit; (2) to 
enlist men and boys in Bible study in 
organized classes of the Sunday school; 
(3) to enlist men in service in the regular 
and established channels of the local 
church and denomination ; (4) to increase 
the emphasis of the Christian religion as 
the only hope of men and nations; (5) 
to secure personal faith of men and boys 
in Jesus Christ; (6) to magnify the 
church in its relation to the needs of men; 
(7) to give recognition to men in the work 
and worship of the church; (8) to fed- 
erate in a great national brotherhood all 
men’s classes and societies, of whatever 
name, in the denomination; (9) to co- 
operate with the denominational boards in 
making real their ideals for the establish- 
ment of the Kingdom of God on earth; 
(10) to enlist men in all worthy move- 
ments for social, civic, and industrial bet- 
terment. The headquarters are in Day- 
ton, Ohio. 

The National League of Unitarian Lay- 
men was established in 1909, to promote 
the organization of men’s clubs in all its 
churches and to suggest and supervise 
methods for their activity along the fol- 
lowing lines: 

To bring the men of the separate Uni- 
tarian churches into close acquaintance, a 
codperation, and fellowship through the 
various forms of social and church work; 
to bring about an increasing participation 
by laymen, not only in the work of the 
local church, but also in the affairs of the 
denomination at large, and to extend the 
activities of the church to the advance- 
ment of the social, civic, moral, and reli- 
gious interests of the community. The 
headquarters are in New York city. (See 
Brotherhoods in Great Britain.) 

W. B. PaTrerson. 

References: 

Leete, F. D. Christian Brotherhoods. 

(New York, 1912.) 


186 


Brotherhoods, Great Britain 
Patterson, W. B. Modern Church 
Brotherhoods. (New York, 1911.) 
BROTHERHOOD OF ANDREW ANT) 
PHILIP.—Srr BroTHERHOOD MOVEMENT, 
BROTHERHOOD OF DAVID.—Sri| 
Boy, THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING THE i 
DRAMATIZATION, THE USE OF, IN TEACH: 





ING, 


BROTHERHOOD OF ST. ANDREW.—| 
SEE BrortHERHOOD MOVEMENT; GUILD) 
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE, ANGLICAN, 


BROTHERHOOD OF ST. PAUL.—SzE 
BROTHERHOOD MOVEMENT. 


BROTHERHOODS IN GREAT BRIT. 
AIN.—The history of the “Brother: 
hood” and “The Pleasant Sunday After: 
noon”—for the movements cannot be 
treated separately—will be always associ-| 
ated with the name of John Blackham,| 
He was born in West Bromwich in the) 
year 1834, and has been connected for 
practically his whole life with the Eben-| 
ezer Congregational Church, 

The morning Adult School had been. 
flourishing in Birmingham for some time) 
prior to the birth of Brotherhoods, and 
just before their inception, Mr. D. A 
Moody (qg. v.) was attracting large audi-| 
ences in that center. Through these meet- 
ings the spiritual atmosphere for a na 
experiment was created. The Bible 
classes held in connection with the Sun- 
day school had failed in large measure te 
stay the drift of our young people from 
the influences of the church. To use 
the words of the founder of the new move- 
ment, “I realized that if they were to be 
won we must give them a service neither 
too long nor too learned; we must avoid 
dullness, prolixity, gloom, and constraint. 
I saw that one reason of our failure was 
because the classes were conducted in the 
‘seventh standard’ of religion, whereas 
the members were barely in the ‘first,’ 
Then I had my first vision of large! 
classes of men, and I felt certain God 
would show me how to realize this vision.”| 

The result was that at a teachers’ meet- 
ing held at Ebenezer Church, 1875, Mr. 
Blackham offered to make an effort to 
regain and reclaim the young men who 
had lapsed from the Sunday school. He’ 


4 
Pr 
: | 
»| 



















j 
j 


= 


i — 
a 

= ae 
~ 


Brotherhoods, Great Britain 


devoted all his leisure to the task, and 
talked about the experiment to all he met 
during the week. In doing so he discov- 
ered the title by which the movement at 
first became known. “The Pleasant Sun- 
day Afternoon.” 

When in 1909, a tablet was unveiled to 
mark the room in which the first meeting 
was held, the Rev. C. S. Horne declared 
that Mr. Blackham had discovered Sun- 
day afternoon. “There were a great many 
people,” he said, “who had never discov- 
ered the Sunday afternoon. They had 
always slept through it; but Mr. Black- 
ham had found that this was the best time 
for his experiment. It was a time when 
there was practically nothing to do. At 
any other part of the day a large per- 
centage of people were engaged or em- 
ployed in a great many ways, but on Sun- 
day afternoon practically the whole man- 
hood of the country was at liberty, and 
therefore it was the time to do a great 

_ work for humanity.” 

_ The first meeting that was held revealed 
the initial difficulty and its remedy. The 
difficulty was to secure promise of regular 
and punctual attendance at the meetings. 
The remedy was found in a card of mem- 
bership and a book prize scheme; in this 
way financial support was gained, as well 
/as an incentive provided to regular at- 
_ tendance. 

__ The character that the meetings were 
Intended to assume was expressed by three 
'B’s. They were to be “Brief, Bright, 
Brotherly.” This alliterative motto has 
proved the keynote of a marvelous suc- 
cess. The movement started as an off- 
‘shoot of the Sunday school and was de- 
‘signed to carry on its work among the 
‘pupils who had lapsed. The P.S.A., or 
Brotherhood, as originally planned was 
Intended to be something in the nature of 
an Adult Sunday school. It has become 
both less and more than that. (See Adult 
‘School Movement. ) 

Commenced in a _ Congregational 
/Church, the value of the Brotherhood 
‘Movement was soon perceived by other 
Teligious denominations. Tracing the his- 
tory of its advance we find Baptists, Epis- 
copalians, Methodists, Wesleyans, and all 
engaged in Christian work quickly seeing 
its possibilities, and taking advantage of 
the machinery created. The so-called 
Black Country, in which the movement 


187 


Brotherhoods, Great Britain 


had its birth, soon made a home for it jn 
the various churches throughout the dis- 
trict. By the year 1885, great meetings 
had been established in Derby; in 1886, in 
Nottingham and Leicester; and by 1888, 
in London. 

At the autumnal meetings of the Con- 
gregational Union held in 1889, Mr. 
Blackham gave an account of the initia- 
tion and spread of the idea; after which 
Lancashire, Yorkshire, and all England 
became interested. 

Karly in 1890 the original idea of meet- 
ings for men only, was enlarged, and 
mixed societies were established under 
various names. The underlying idea of 
all these gatherings centered around the 
motto “Brief, Bright, Brotherly,’ al- 
though the societies entitled “Men’s Own” 
and “Brotherhoods” adhered most closely 
to the original P.S.A. conception. 

In the year 1893 the question of a na- 
tional federation was first considered with 
the result that joint conferences have been 
held from time to time in various centers, 
and Federation Meetings are now an an- 
nual feature. 

Aims of the Movement. These may be 
briefly summed up as being: 1. Spirit- 
ual, 7 ¢. To lead men and women into 
the Kingdom of God, (a) By the power 
of love; (b) By the power of the Word; 
(c) By the power of the Holy Spirit. 

2. Social, 7. e., to bring men and 
women into contact with each other in 
religious societies and to offer facilities 
for helping life at all points, (a) Through 
meetings; (b) Through clubs; (c) 
Through books; (d) Through mutual in- 
tercourse, etc. 

3. Self-reliance and mutual helpful- 
ness, 1. ¢., to make each society, (a) Self- 
governing; (b) Self-extending; (c) Self- 
supporting; (d) Self-sacrificing. 

Methods and Organization. In order 
that these aims may be realized both 
method and organization are needed. 
This important side of the movement has 
not been overlooked, and a little manual 
entitled How to Start a P.S.A. or Similar 
Society, has been published and has had 
a large circulation. In this book may be 
found outline orders of service, a facsimile 
of a membership card, a visiting form, 
etc. 

The pioneer of the movement lays stress 
on the necessity of initial advertisement. 


Brothers of the Christian Schools 


“The best movement,” he says, “may fail 
if unknown. It is not sufficient to dis- 
cover a mine, it must be worked before its 
riches can benefit the community.” In 
consequence, the discoverer unfolds in his 
book the steps that lead to success, 1. ¢., @ 
good program, inspiring speech and song, 
punctuality, good committee work, care- 
ful finance; and lastly, there is a reminder 
that the source from whence enduring 
success must come is the “never-failing, 
all-sufficient stronghold of prayer.” 

The success achieved by this great 
movement is its sufficient warrant. Once 
empty churches, and once empty lives, 
have been filled with new life and vigor. 
In view, however, of the fact that the 
original aim of the movement was to 
supplement the work of the Sunday 
school, and because of the development of 
the Institute Department of the school in 
which teaching 1s a pronounced feature, 
the raising of the age limit for member- 
ship of P.S.A. and similar societies, would 
be a wise departure. As codperative or- 
ganizations both the Sunday school and 
Brotherhood may be mutually enriched, 
and more workers trained for service in 
the Church of Christ. (See Brotherhood 


Movement.) W. MELvILye Harris. 


BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN 
SCHOOLS.—Srr La Saiz, JEAN Bap- 
TISTE DE; RoMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN 
AMERIOA. 


BUDDHISM.—Srrt Japan, RELIGIOUS 
EpucATION IN; NON-CHRISTIAN SCRIP- 
TURES. 


BUILDING UP THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL.—SrEE ReEcRUITING THE §S. S., 
METHODS OF. . 


BUILDINGS, SUNDAY-SCHOOL.—SEE 
ARCHITECTURE, S. S. 


BULLARD, ASA (1804-88).—Congre- 
gational clergyman, editor, and author. 
Born at Northbridge, Mass., 1804. He 
was graduated from Amherst College 
1828, after which he spent a year in Au- 
gusta, Me. He attended Andover Theo- 
logical Seminary for two years, but there 
is no positive record that he was gradu- 
ated from there. During the entire time 
of his educational training he was con- 


188 


Bushnell 


nected with Sunday-school work. In 
1831 he became general agent and secre- 
tary of the Maine Sabbath School Union, 
in which work he spent three years. In 
1834, Mr. Bullard became the secretary 
and general agent of the Massachusetts 
Sabbath School Society, which is now 
called the Congregational Sunday School 
and Publishing Society, Boston, Mass., 
and for more than fifty years continued 
to work under its auspices. He was the 
editor of The Wellspring, and the Sabbath- 
School Visitor, and the author of Fifty 
Years with the Sabbath Schools. 

Dr. Bullard always felt a special inter- 
est in children, in their religious educa- 
tion, and in providing literature appro- 
priate for the Sunday school. Dr. Alex- 
ander McKenzie wrote of Dr. Bullard: 
“His personal career is nearly coeval and 
parallel with Sabbath schools in this land. 
. . . He has been active in promoting 
their interests, has had a true sympathy 
with their design and methods, has seen 
their strength and weakness, and has 
gained by a large experience a vantage 
ground for instructing the people.” His 
connection with the Sunday school was 
that of pupil, teacher, superintendent, or 
in an official capacity. 

He died at “Sunnybank,” Cambridge- 
port, Mass., in 1888. S. G. Avgrs 


Reference: 

Bullard, Asa. Incidents of a Busy 
Infe; an Autobtography. (Boston, 
c1888.) 


BUSHNELL, HORACE (1802-76).— 
An American theologian. Sunday-school 
workers, parents, lovers of childhood, and 
childhood itself, owe a large debt of 
gratitude to Horace Bushnell. He was 
born in 1802 and died in 1876. A large 
part of his life and ministry was spent 
in Hartford, Conn., where he was pastor 
of the leading Congregational Church. 
From there as a center, his words and 
influence radiated to the confines of the 
religious world. 

His genius was so marked, his charac- 
ter so lofty, and his influence so far reach- 
ing as to give unusual value to whatever 
cause he espoused. “Dr. Bushnell was not 
a framer of a theological system, but he 
was a wonderful inspirer of religious 
thought and experience. His sympathies 
embraced with enthusiasm every depart- 





Bushnell 


ment of life.” (A. E. Dunning. Congre- 


gationalists in America.) For eloquence 


and beauty his sermons are compared with 


those of F. W. Robertson. That he 


_ divined the primal worth of a child, and 
understood the supreme value of Chris- 


was in his day very unusual. 


epoch in religious thinking. 


tian training, is in itself a tribute to his 
genius. What to-day is a commonplace 
His book 
entitled Christian Nurture marked an 
It was in 


_ advance of the times,—a pioneer, a path- 


finder, and a pointer out of the way. The 


main proposition of the work is that the 


_ child is to grow up a Christian, and never 


_ think of himself as anything else than a 


_ Christian. 


In arguing for his theory 


of Christian training Dr. Bushnell says: 
_ “Therefore we bring them (the children) 


into the school of Christ and the pale 
of mercy with us, there to be trained up 
in the holy nurture of the Lord.” He 


_ believed strongly that children should be 
members of the church, and buttressed 


his belief with 


substantial reasoning, 


showing among other things that they 
_ had been accorded such membership from 


the earliest Christian times. 


He also in- 


sisted upon the necessity of a Christian 


regimen for all baptized children, and 


outlined the more important elements 


_ essential in such a course of religious dis- 
_eipline and instruction. 


His books God 


in Christ, Nature and the Supernatural, 
Vicarious Sacrifice, and Forgiveness and 


_ Law, set forth Dr. Bushnell’s spiritual 
attitude and his theological interpreta- 


tions. 

In his recognition of the value of physi- 
cal nurture as a means of grace, the place 
/of play in religious discipline, and the 
religious opportunity of home and family 
life Dr. Bushnell was a thorough modern. 
_ Indeed, many principles and methods now 
_ brought forward as new, and original, root 
back in the teaching of this man to 
_whom the present-day pedagogy, and the 
whole modern Sunday-school movement 
owes a debt of incalculable magnitude. 

It is significant of the depth and 
sincerity of his convictions that shortly 
before his death he said earnestly to one 
_whom in earlier life he had tried to per- 
_suade to give up Sunday-school work and 
-enter the ministry, “Now I’ve come to 
see that the work you are doing is the 
greatest work in the world.” ‘Then after 


189 


Bushwick Avenue §. 8. 


a pause he added, “Sometimes I think 
it’s the only work there is in the world.” 

Every Sunday-school worker, and in- 
deed every one interested in the religious 
life of childhood and youth, should care- 
fully study Horace Bushnell’s teachings 
as set forth in Christian Nurture. 

D. G. Downey. 

References: 

Cheney, Mrs. M. (B.) 
Letters of Horace Bushnell. 
York, 1903, c1880-1903.) 

Munger, T. T. Horace Bushnell, 


Infe and 
(New 


Preacher and Theologian. (Boston, 

1899.) 

BUSHWICK AVENUE (METHODIST) 
SUNDAY SCHOOL.—The Bushwick 


Avenue Methodist Sunday School of 
Brooklyn, N. Y., is a notable example of 
a highly graded school, with each depart- 
ment thoroughly organized so as to be a 
complete school for the purposes of that 
department, and working automatically 
in the absence of the general superintend- 
ent. Each department is organically con- 
nected with all the others, and by means 
of annual promotions from one depart- 


- ment to another contributes to the wel- 


fare and progress of the whole school. 
There are, however, no promotions from 
one grade to another within a department. 
In one respect the Bushwick Avenue 
school differs from other graded schools, 
in that its teachers are encouraged to 
remain with their classes throughout the 
whole course, up through the Senior De- 
partment. This is contrary to the usual 
custom of graded schools; but with the 
help of competent teachers, Bushwick 
Avenue has successfully applied this 
change. 

The school is under the authority of a 
Sunday School Board consisting of the 
pastor, officers, teachers, and the Sunday 
school Committee of the Quarterly Con- 
ference. All classes are continued 
throughout the summer. The school 
opens at half past two in the afternoon, 
and closes at four. It has a membership 
of about 3,800 (including its Cradle Roll 
and Home Department) and is divided 
into five departments: (1) the Beginners’ 
Department, with pupils from four to 
five years old; (2) the Primary, from six 
to eight; (3) the Junior, from nine to 
twelve; (4) the Intermediate, from thir- 


Bushwick Avenue §. S. 


teen to sixteen; (5) the Senior, from 
seventeen to twenty; (6) the Adults, all 
twenty-one and above. 

This outline of the school’s organiza- 
tion facilitates a reference to the distinc- 
tive outlook and spirit which animates it; 
namely, the educating of each department 
so as to develop its local enthusiasm and 
energy to the highest attainable point, 
thereby promoting a friendly rivalry 
whose purpose is the general good of the 
school and the church, with special em- 
phasis upon the religious motive and work 
of the year. 

Bushwick Avenue Sunday School has 
a special idea and task set before it each 
year, toward which the individual efforts 
of its officers, teachers, and pupils, and 
all the power of its organization, are 
directed. These ideas and tasks may vary 
considerably, but the spiritual motive is 
always kept in view. One year it was 
a campaign for aiding the church in build- 
ing operations—the battle cry for that 
year being “Together”; in another year 
it was an attempt practically to realize 
“The holiness of the teacher’s position 
and relation to the pupil”; again, the 
thought for the year was “We seek the 
best: the Book, the friend, the life of 
service.” 

In regard to organization, there are ten 
classes in the Beginners’ Department; 
but the Primary Department is taught as 
one class, the teacher being assisted by 
twelve monitors. The Junior Depart- 
ment has thirty-six classes and four 
grades, each year from nine to twelve in- 
clusive, being counted as a grade; but 
those in the first year are taught as one 
class on the principle that for the young- 
est pupils the transition from the Pri- 
mary to the Junior Department is thus 
made easier. The Intermediate Depart- 
ment has also four grades. This depart- 
ment shows the best average attendance 
and decided superiority in the number 
and attendance of boys. This fact is 
noteworthy because in this department, 
especially at the ages of fifteen and six- 
teen, boys are inclined rapidly to drift 
away from the Sunday school. The suc- 
cess of Bushwick Avenue school in this 
respect is attributable to (1) capable 
men teachers for boys; (2) an attractive 
room; (3) the treatment of the Interme- 
diate Department, for some purposes, as 


190 


Bushwick Avenue S$. S. 


a subdivision of the Senior. The Inter- 
mediate pupils attend the opening serv- — 
ices of the Senior Department, and on 
special occasions, such as Easter, Decora- 
tion day, Flag day, etc., folding doors 
permit the merging of Intermediate and 
Senior pupils in one large room, with the 
advantage to the former of listening to 
special addresses, music, etc. In the 
Senior Department there are sixty-five 
classes, but no grades. 

The school meets in cheerful, well- 
decorated, and well ventilated rooms. 
Each department has a separate room, 
with departmental superintendent, offi- 
cers, and teachers, and with appropriate 
instruction and devotional service. Each 
has its departmental committees to dis- 
cuss local affairs, and at times all the 
chairman of the departmental commit- 
tees join to discuss the progress of the 
whole school. There are games, a gym- 
nasium, reading room, baseball club, boys’ 
brigade, fife and drum corps, and a well- 
trained orchestra. The democratic spirit 
of the school is indicated in the organized 
classes in the Intermediate and Senior 
departments. In these classes, in which 
the pupils choose their own officers and 
are practically self-governing, much is — 
accomplished in sustaining the enthusi- 
asm of the departments in behalf of the 
whole school. There is an Employment 
Bureau which, without charge, has pro- 
cured situations for thousands of pupils. 

Bushwick Avenue school does not em- 
phasize the idea of the Sunday school as 
a “children’s church”; it rather aims to 
add to the church’s membership and effi- 
ciency ; and this is done by endeavoring to 
supplement and round out the training 
of the pupils in those respects which the 
regular adult church service fails to meet. 
Each department has an order of service 
suited to the needs and understanding 
of the pupils. For the Intermediate and 
Senior departments these orders are 
printed. In all departments it is per- 
mitted to supplement the lessons of Scrip- 
ture by facts, illustrations, and the con- 
templation of noble characters from the 
modern world. 

The enthusiasm of officers and teachers 
in their work is increased by the regular 
exercise of the social spirit on public oc- 
casions. At an annual banquet and re- 
ception is sounded the keynote of the 





Bushwick Avenue §. S. 


work of the school for the year. At these 
reunions something of the aggressiveness 
of the college spirit is permitted, though 
within limits strictly maintained, and 
with a constant reminder of the spiritual 
purpose of the school. At the same time 
the prime factor—the efficiency of the 


191 


Bushwick Avenue §. §. 


individual teacher—is always kept in view 
in relation to the great object: the de- 
velopment of character in the pupil. The 
general superintendent is Mr. Frank L. 
Brown; the associate superintendent is 
Mr. Harry G. Simpson. 

J. W. RUSSELL. 


C 


CABINET, SUNDAY SCHOOL.—The 
Sunday School Cabinet is composed of the 
heads of the departments in the Sunday 
school—the Beginners, Primary, Junior, 
Intermediate, Senior and Adult. The 
president of the Cabinet is the general 
superintendent of the Sunday school. 
Meetings are held once a month, at which 
the department heads make a report of 
the work in their departments. In this 
way each department knows what the 
other is doing, and unity is given to the 
life of the whole school. - Department 
superintendents know better what to ex- 
pect from the grades that are coming to 
them at the beginning of the new year; 
they know also what equipment their 
grades should have before they pass into 
the next department. The whole Sunday- 
school system—its organization, equip- 
ment, curriculum, and activities, its lim- 
itations and possibilities—is made clear 
to every member of the Cabinet. _The re- 
sult is a closer correlation of forces, 
avoidance of waste, a definite, consistent 
purpose for the year, and a new morale 
through the entire body of workers. 

In small schools, the Cabinet should in- 
clude teachers of the grades. In any Sun- 
day school where there are organized 
classes of young people seventeen years old 
and upwards, the presidents and teachers 
should be a part of the Sunday School 
Cabinet. The contribution they can make 
to the solution of the “teen age” problem 
is too valuable to be ignored. (See Or- 


ganization, S. S.) S. A. WEsToN. 


CALVIN, JOHN (1509-64).—Theolo- 
gian and one of the leading reformers of 
the sixteenth century; born at Noyon, in 
Picardy, France. After his preliminary 
education he studied Latin, logic, and 
philosophy for four years at the University 
of Paris, where doubtless he came in con- 
tact with the new doctrines. He next de- 
voted himself to the study of law, first at 


Orleans and then at Bourges, and mean-’ 


while studied the Greek Testament. 


The exact date of his conversion is un- 


certain, but it was probably between 1529 
and 1532. After his father’s death in 


1531, Calvin became identified with the 
At Paris he preached, and 


Reformation. 
in 1533 he helped to prepare an inaugural 
address for Nicholas Cap, the rector of | 





| 
| 





the University, in which address the new 


teachings were stated so boldly that both 
men had to leave the city. At Basel in 
1536 his epoch-making book the Institutes 
of the Christian Religion was published. 
This work systematically sets forth the 
doctrines of the Reformed churches, and 
has been called “the masterpiece of Prot- 
estant theology.” 

The same year he went to Geneva, ex- 
pecting only to remain over night. 


The | 


city was in a state of revolt, having thrown 
off the pope’s authority, and Calvin was. 


besought to stay and to organize the dis- 
turbed elements. 
entreaties and actively directed the ref- 
ormation of the church, education and 
morals. His system had a profound and 


He yielded to their | 


lasting effect upon the thought, creeds, 


and government in England, Scotland, 
and America. 


In the Encyclopedia Britannica, Pro- 


fessor Grieve says: 
immense value in the history of Chris- 


“His system had an 


tian thought. It appealed to and evoked | 


a high order of intelligence, and its insist- 


ence on personal salvation has borne 


worthy fruit. 
the chief end of man, 
the will of God,’ made for the strenuous | 
morality that helped to build up the 
modern world.” 

Calvin’s principal doctrines were the) 
sovereignty of God and the authority of | 
the Bible truth. His work for the Bible’ 
was most important. 


He revised the 


So also its insistence on 
‘to know and do. 


1 


French Bible and prepared commentaries 


upon its separate books. 


One of his te- 


nets was that the children must be care-| 


fully trained in the home by the parents 
and must attend the Sunday noon cate-_ 
chetical classes. 


192 


The basis of such in- 


: 
i 


WALES.—SeExE GrapEp Lessons, BRITISH. 


Calvinistic Methodists 


struction was his French catechism. Also 


in the day school the children were taught 


to sing the Psalms in order that they 
might lead in the congregational singing. 
Calvin insisted that they should be trained 
‘not merely in sound learning and doc- 
trine, but also in manners, good morals, 
and common sense.” Panty J. Feu. 


References: 

Bungener, F. Calvin: his Life, La- 
bours, and Writings. (Edinburgh, 
1863.) 

Dyer, T. H. Life of John Calvin. 
(London, 1850.) 

New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of 
Religious Knowledge. 

Walker, W. John Calvin. (New 
York, 1906.) 

Willis, R. M. D. Servetus and Cal- 
vin: a Study ... in the Karly History 
of the Reformation. (London, 1877.) 


CALVINISTIC METHODISTS IN 


CAMP FIRE GIRLS, THE.—This or- 
ganization numbers over 60,000 girls, and 
is rapidly growing. Under the guidance 
and stimulus that the organization affords 
the girls are enabled, in a practical way, 
better to fit themselves for life. 

The system of organization includes 
groups of girls under the guidance of 
young women designated as “guardian.” 


The guardian must be a capable person— 
she must be one who has a genuine love 
for girls, a real liking for the work, and 


must have the best of references. 


After 


_her application has been approved by the 
_ National Board she gathers around her a 
_group of from ten to twenty girls, with 
_whom she holds weekly meetings. 


The group is known as a “Camp Fire” 


and has a distinctive name. 


For doing certain things, which range 


from household duties to business and 


which are known as “honors,” the girls 


_Teceive various beads which symbolize by 
_ their shape and colors the different kinds 
of activities that a girl pursues. For the 


| 
’ 


sake of convenience these activities are 


divided into the following divisions: 
_ Health, home craft, nature lore, camp 
craft, hand craft, business, patriotism. 


At the weekly gatherings, the girls learn 


to do some of the various “honor” tasks. 
Once a month a “Camp Fire” is held at 


193 


Camp Fire Girls 


which a symbolic ceremony is carried out 
beads awarded, etc., and all the girls wear 
their ceremonial Indian gowns and their 
strings of beads. 

Fire is the symbol of the organization, 
for around it the first homes were built. 
Not only does the “Camp Fire” stand for 
the home, but for the genuineness and 
simplicity of out-of-door life. 

The watchword is Wohelo. It is 
formed of the first two letters of work, 
health, and love. 

These “Camp Fires” and other meet- 
ings, the simple Indian costume (which 
the girls themselves can make at slight 
expense), the beautiful ceremonials full 
of meaning, and the individual names ex- 
pressive of ideals, are all symbols for real 
effort, without which no girl could long 
remain a contented member. In the 
spirit created by the organization a girl 
advances through the various ranks, and 
acquires “honors” by doing her home 
work intelligently, by physical exercise, 
by a knowledge of the trees, birds, flow- 
ers and stars, by caring for the sick, by 
trimming a hat, by keeping her own ac- 
counts, by refraining from sodas and 
candy between meals, and by two hundred 
other actions of performance or self- 
restraint. Besides the “honors” needed to 
secure rank, others may be won which are 
recognized by additional “honor beads.” 

These requirements for rank and elec- 
tive honors, cover the entire field of a 
girl’s activities. Some typical examples 
are: 

To make a shirt waist. 

To cook meat in four ways. 

To do all the work in a successful gar- 
den. 

Wood carving. To make a useful piece 
of furniture. 

To live for one year on a given allow- 
ance which shall cover all personal ex- 
penses, and to keep full accounts. 

To be free from every indication of a 
cold for two consecutive months between 
October and April. | 

To tell the history and meaning of the 
American flag and the flag of the coun- 
try from which her ancestors came. 

“Honors” are also given for encour- 
agement to folk dancing, craft work, 
simple singing, and similar activities 
which are being crowded out of modern 
life by other more superficial interests. 


Camp Fire Girls 


A girl, upon joining, expresses her de- 
sire to keep the Law of the Camp Fire, 
which is to: seek beauty; give service; 
pursue knowledge; be trustworthy; hold 
on to health; glorify work; be happy. 

After evincing her practical enthusi- 
asm in the work, she receives without pay- 
ment, a silver ring and becomes a “‘Wood- 
gatherer,” takes an Indian name, and de- 
signs a symbolic headband suggestive of 
some ideal which she desires to achieve. 
Through months of daily achievement she 
becomes a “Fire maker” and is entitled to 
wear the “Fire makers” bracelet. The 
rank of “Torch bearer” is merited by ac- 
complishing greater undertakings. 

A guardian is free to conduct her 
“Camp Fire” as she judges best so long 
as she conforms to the general rules re- 
garding honors and requirements for 
rank, She is expected to plan the work, 
to award the honors, and in general to be 
responsible for all the activities of the 
“Camp Fire.” 

Guardians are given a small round pin 
which symbolizes the sun and stands for 
fire. Spreading from an open ring in 
the center are twelve rays, one for each 
month of the year. On each ray are three 
projections, work, health, and love—that 
is, the Camp Fire Girls are busy all the 
year in work, health, and love. To the 
guardians it symbolizes that the success 
of the entire work depends upon her devo- 
tion, ideals, originality, and leadership. 
The guardians are the real sources of in- 
spiration and success. 

In order to have the organization self- 
supporting and not a philanthropy, each 
“Camp Fire” having not over ten mem- 
bers is expected to pay annually five dol- 
lars as their share in the expenses of the 
national work. For each member in ad- 
dition to ten, fifty cents is to be added, 
e. g., for a “Camp Fire” of fifteen mem- 
bers the annual dues will be seven dollars 
and a half. These fees are payable in two 
installments, December first and June 
first, each year. It is expected that this 
money shall be earned by each “Camp 
Fire” rather than given by the girls or 
their friends, as it is believed that it is 
more valuable to the girls to earn the dues 
for themselves than it would be for 
benevolent people to donate them. Help- 
ing people to help themselves is a funda- 
mental principle. 


194 


Camps, Church ; 


A monthly bulletin named Wohelo is 
issued by the National Board. It con- 
tains special information for guardians 
and girls, and articles of general interest. 

Girls cannot join the Camp Fire Girls 
until they are twelve years of age. Prior 
to that they may become “Blue Birds,” 
which is the name of an auxiliary organ- 
ization for the benefit of younger girls. 
“Blue Birds” have special costumes, 
meetings, and activities quite different 
from those of the Camp Fire Girls. A 
nest of “Blue Birds” may be started by 
any guardian. Camp Fire Girls who are 
capable of doing so are encouraged to 
assist. 

The spirit of wholesome simplicity per- 
vading the Camp Fire Girls’ organization 
causes it to be adaptable to all girls, and 
appeals equally to all classes of society. 
Its growth is encouragingly great among 
girls who are now receiving by means of 
the organization much of that refinement 
and symmetrical ‘development of char- 
acter that otherwise they might miss en- 
tirely. The plan of the Camp Fire Girls 
is such that it fits into the needs of the 
home and of practically all organizations 
dealing with girls. Organizations of 
Camp Fire Girls are in every one of the 
United States. 

After careful planning the movement 
was publicly launched in March, 1912. 
Dr. Luther Gulick and Mrs. Gulick have 
contributed largely to the success of the 
movement which is an outgrowth of a 
number of years’ experience in developing 
the “Camp Fire” idea among girls in a 
summer camp. Headquarters are located 
at 461 Fourth avenue, New York city. 


CAMPS, CHURCH.—A camp may be 
conducted at a cost to each camper of not 
more than fifty or sixty cents a day. It 
is almost always possible to secure, with- 
out cost, the use of a pleasant and sani- 
tary spot near safe bathing, and it is often 
possible to borrow tents and boats, and un- 
der such circumstances their cost may be 
materially reduced. 

The best time for a camp is the first 
week after school closes. The young peo- 
ple are thus gathered together before they 
scatter for the summer. This week 
usually precedes the pastor’s vacation 
and includes the Fourth of July, thus — 
enabling boys or girls who may be em- 





RECEIVING A MEMBER. 


Prev er TREO GIRIGS: 


a rs rae aT 


ie ot ee eee wal | 








Camps, Church 


ployed through the summer to secure a 
little of the camping experience during 
their holiday. 

The location of a camp, as has been 
suggested, should be beside a body of 
water. It should also be within a few 
miles of the church, so that it may be 
easily visited by the’ parents. There 
should be safe drinking water at hand, 
and easy opportunity of buying milk, 
groceries, and fruits. It is not necessary 
to go off into the wilds in order to have 
a successful camp. The natural exclu- 
siveness of the camp spirit isolates the 
campers even from near neighbors, and 
there is both safety and convenience in 
having access to kindly friends. 

The necessary equipment of a camp is 
moderate in amount. After tents and 
boats have been secured the campers will 
divide among themselves the task of bring- 
ing the larger cooking utensils, while each 
will bring his own individual crockery 
and silver. The trench fire is more ap- 
propriate than a stove, and forms the 
foundation of the social camp-fire at 
night. _ 

_ One great value of camping is the 
spirit of codperation which is required. 
All the work of a camp can be done under 
direction by the campers themselves. It 
has been the writer’s custom the first 
morning of camp to divide those present 
into four squads: Those to do the cooking, 
and to set and wait upon the table; those 
who bring the groceries; those who bring 
wood and water, and have charge of the 
boats and games; and those who wash the 
dishes. Each squad serves two days, and 
then takes a different task. It is not 
usually well to take cooked food from 
home. The camp leader brings a supply 
of staple groceries, and prepares the food 
freshly from day to day. In warm weather 
the prepared cereals, simple soups and 
stews, cocoa, salt, and fresh meats and 
berries, constitute a sufficient variety. 
The direction of the camp should be dis- 
tinetly placed under, the authority of this 
leader, but under the squad-system of 
working the pressure of authority is 
hardly felt. ‘Two regulations are abso- 
lutely necessary, and their infraction 
should be punished by instant dismissal. 
These are that no firearms nor fire- 
crackers should be allowed in camp, and 
that no camper should be allowed in the 


195 


Camps, Church 


water, except at the bathing period when 
all go together. 

The most enjoyable camps are those 
shared by young people of about the same 
age. It is not feasible to camp with older 
and younger boys together unless it be 
distinctly understood that each older boy 
is the patron of a younger one; otherwise 
there will be irritation between the two 
ages. 

There should be a simple schedule in 
the leader’s mind, which, nevertheless, 
becomes somewhat elastic in practice. 
The boys will naturally skylark more or 
less the first night, and should be allowed 
plenty of sleep the next morning. The 
sunlight will awaken them early, and so, 
after a lively day of physical activity, 
they will be glad enough to retire early 
afterward. There should always be an 
hour of restfulness after the noon-day 
meal. There should be two fixed periods 
for bathing, before dinner and supper, 
and to this may be added an informal 
“dip” before breakfast for those who are 
especially energetic. The morning will 
usually be devoted to a baseball game, and 
water baseball will be a favorite sport 
during the afternoon swim. Excursions 
in a boat after wood, and by land for 
groceries and fruits, hiking expeditions 
into the surrounding country, an hour of 
story-telling and song around the camp- 
fire, will fill the day abundantly. 

There should always be a “mothers’ 
day,” when the parents will bring plenty 
of provisions to fill the larder, and will 
be royally entertained by the boys. The 
fathers should be encouraged to spend a 
night at camp. -Several of them will 
probably remain over Sunday. Sunday is 
rather a difficult day to fill wholesomely. 
Long walks in the woods, a Sunday-school 
session, a song service on the shore, or a 
visit to a neighboring church, are appro- 
priate activities. 

Camping is suitable not only to boys, 
but also to girls. Girls, however, having 
so much domestic work in the winter, may 
prefer to hire a cottage where they will 
enjoy mutual fellowship without hardship. 

The acquaintanceship produced by a 
week of camping seems to resemble the 
close bonds of a college fraternity. Ever 
after such boys pull together as a group, 
and many a church club or Sunday-school 
class has grown out of strong attachments 


Canada 


made at camp. The leader finds a spirit- 
ual opportunity, not so much in formal 
expressions of religion, as in his own will- 
ingness to share hardships and play with 
his young friends, and also by the pecul- 
iar opportunities that come to him in 
rambling alone with individual boys, to 
talk with them concerning their life pur- 
poses and ideals, (See Vocational In- 
struction.) It has been the writer’s 
experience that boys who camp with him, 
are those who later become members of 
the church and strong helpers in the 


church work. W. B. ForsusH. 
References: 
Gibson, H. W. Camping for Boys. 
(New York, 1911.) 
How to Swim. (New York, 1913.) 


CANADA, HISTORY OF THE ASSO- 
CIATED SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK IN 
THE DOMINION OF.—Rev. William 
Smart, whose parents belonged to the 
Secession Church of Haddington, Scot- 
land, having resolved to devote his life 
to missionary work, sailed for Canada on 
April 8, 1811. On arrival he worked 
slowly westward, reaching Elizabethtown, 
now Brockville, and the St. Lawrence 
river, October 7%, 1811. On the second 
Sabbath in October he organized a Sab- 
bath school. This was the first Sabbath 
school in what was then Upper Canada, 
now Ontario. 

In 1828 Rev. A. J. Parker came from 
Vermont to the village of Danville, Que- 
bec, where he organized the Congrega- 
tional Church, remaining its pastor for 
forty years. From an address delivered 
by him about 1868, entitled Sabbath 
Schools in the Townships Forty Years 
Ago, it is learned that in 1828 a group of 
nine schools met in convention in the 
vicinity of Stanstead Plain. Also that in 
the summer of 1829 or 1830 a blockhouse 
used for day school purposes was refused 
the day school teacher for the use on 
Sunday for a Sunday school. “Protec- 
tion of the building,’ handsome as it 
must have been, was the reason alleged. 
It is difficult, if not impossible, to de- 
termine just what school was first organ- 
ized in Canada. [This honor is claimed 
by the Church of England in Canada 
which reports, apparently on good author- 
ity, a Sunday school in Halifax, Nova 
Scotia, in 1783. ] 


196 


Canada 


On the 14th of July, 1836, the Rey. 
T. Osgoode, Captain Maitland, Mr. James 
Court, Mr. Alexander Leslie, Mr. A. 
Howson and Henry Lyman met in the 
office of Mr. James Court, Montreal, 
Quebec, “to take into consideration the 
necessity of forming a Union for the 
purpose of promoting Sabbath schools 
throughout the Provinces.” ‘This meeting 
led to the appointment of a committee, 
and the calling of a larger meeting, with 
the result that on the 21st of July, 1836, 
the “Canada Sunday School Union” was 
formally organized, as its constitution de- 
clared, “to promote the establishment of 
Sunday schools wherever it is deemed prac- 
ticable, and to encourage and strengthen 
those already in existence.” It was simi- 
lar in plan and purpose to the American 
Sunday School Union with which, in its 
early days, it was closely associated. This 
is the first codperative Sunday school 
effort in British America. 

Its field of operation included all the: 
British territory from Upper Canada to 
the Atlantic. Its agents and missionaries 
traveled from Sarnia to Gaspe and the 
Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to 
the East. There seems to be no break 
in the records of this Union. They faith- 
fully observed an Anniversary meeting m 
the month of January and a regular 
monthly Business meeting. They devoted 
themselves diligently to the purpose of 
the organization. For the first fifty 
ids of its existence it was closely re- 
ated to the Canadian Branch of the 
British and Foreign Bible Society, which 
was organized in 1820. To make pro- 
vision that schools should be supplied with 
helpful periodicals and books, the Union 
carried on an extensive depository. As 
an indication of the extent of its deposi- 
tory, their report of 1871 shows the fol- 
lowing issues: 





Library Books.........s. 8,477 
Elementary Books....... 1,026 
Hymn Books........... 2,637 
T’nion Questions....... 335 
Maps and Illustrations... . 126 
TTActs <0's.0:0/s\n/sienele eiaeeoay 1,350 
Teachers’ Notes........ 1,622 
Sundrich. ».-s sic ses 9,136 
Periodicals...... daloabenees 44,487 

Total os4 asp eee 69,196 


a 


Canada 


The Treasurer’s Statement shows— 


Receipts, Cash Balances and 


Payments on Account...... $3,776.70 
Free Contributions........... 2,675.45 
Dividends on Bank Stock...... 96.00 
Balance from last year...... 155.40 

Ul De ig ae $6,703.55 


In 1852 extensive correspondence was 
conducted by the Canada Sunday School 
Union, with a view to securing three or 
four suitable persons to do summer mis- 
sionary work in what is known as the 
eastern townships, that portion of Quebec 


Province, then Lower Canada, occupying 


the western point of land between the 
St. Lawrence and the American Bound- 
ary. As a result some young men spent 


July and August of 1852 in mission work, 


organizing Sunday schools. 


Union. 
position. The duty of the Agent was not 
only to encourage and organize schools, 


The salary 
received was $15 per month and expenses. 


On the 15th of February, 1853, Mr. J. 


McNally was engaged as Agent of the 
He was the first to occupy this 


but also to collect funds for the promotion 


of the work. He was succeeded by Rev. Mr. 
Elliott, who labored from September 1, 
-1856, to December, 1860. 
1860, Rev. John McKillican became Agent 
-and continued in this capactiy for above 
thirty years. 
work accomplished may be gleaned from 


In March, 


Some conception of the 


Teports of the Agent’s work. In 1857-62 


“new schools were organized with 310 


teachers and officers and 2,110 pupils, 


besides 223 schools visited and encour- 
aged. These visits were by no means all 
made on Sunday, but night after night, 


from settlement to settlement, as the 


Agent plodded on, workers gladly came 


together. In 1872, 41 schools are re- 


ported organized, with 196 teachers and 


officers and 1,506 pupils. Further in- 


sight may be gathered from the following 
Paragraphs taken from early reports— 


“In reference to the general mission- 


ary work of the year, thirty-five town- 


} 


ships were visited, some of these only 
partially, owing to the nature of the 


country and limited Protestant popula- 


tion. Twelve different points were visited 
on the sea coast on the eastern limit of 
our field, and five schools were there 


organized and five others placed in more 


197 


Canada 


effective working order. To show the 
destitution of some parts he adds, ‘In 
one township I found only three schools 
in operation and organized six. In an- 
other I found the same number and organ- 
ized six. In a third I found four schools 
and organized five. In another I visited 
two and found openings for four, and in 
yet another I found two and organized 
eight’.” 

“Recently found two interesting settle- 
ments in the vicinity of a dense Roman 
Catholic population. On inquiry I was 
told by a merchant that it was useless 
to go any further in that direction. An 
old woman wished me to go. The result 
was the organization of two Union schools, 
in one of which are 40 pupils; the other, 
at my second meeting, 36 young persons 
gave in their names as wishing to be re- 
ceived into a “Testament Class.? The 
young people raised and paid over $13 
in a little more than 24 hours to fur- 
nish their school.” 

The First Convention. The advisability 
of holding a convention of Sunday-school 
teachers in Canada was first suggested 
by Mr. S. J. Lyman at a meeting of the 
Committee of the Canada Sunday School 
Union, Montreal, on July 22, 1856. This 
suggestion led to a preliminary meeting 
of a few gentlemen from different parts 
of the country at Kingston, on the 25th 
of September, 1856. The meeting decided 
unanimously in favor of a convention, 
and created a local Committee of Man- 
agement with provision for other com- 
mittees in corresponding centers. A cir- 
cular, signed by sixty-seven ministers and 
laymen in different parts of Canada, was 
issued, which was addressed to ministers, 
superintendents and others interested in 
Sabbath schools. The first convention 
thus called met on Wednesday, Febru- 
ary 11, 1857, in the city of Kingston. The 
attendance was 310 delegates, 177 of 
whom presented statistical reports from 
185 schools. Ninety-five additional re- 
ports were received from parties unable 
to attend. The President of this first 
Canadian Sunday School Convention 
was Hon. James Ferrier, of Montreal. 

Although elaborate provision was made 
at the Kingston convention for succeed- 
ing conventions, all plans and resolutions 
failed, and it was not until 1865, after 
a lapse of eight years, that a second con- 


Canada 


vention was called. The proposal to hold 
this convention came from Rev. William 
Millard of Brampton, at that time Secre- 
tary of the Peel County Sunday School 
Union which had meanwhile come into 
existence. ‘The preliminary or prepara- 
tory meeting was again called in Kings- 
ton, and the plan laid for the convention 
of 1865 in Toronto. The way being 
blocked there, the convention met in 
Hamilton on September 5, 6 and 7, 1865, 
in the McNab Street Methodist Church, 
the Baptist and Central Presbyterian 
Churches. Here was organized the “Sun- 
day School Association of Canada.” This 
was entirely distinct from though in no 
way in opposition to the “Canada Sun- 
day School Union,” the latter being wholly 
missionary. ‘The new organization was 
a convention movement. ‘The resolution 
creating this new organization stated, 
“That under a deep conviction of the 
importance of mutual counsel in this 
great work of the religious training of the 
young, we, the delegates in Convention 
assembled, hereby resolve to associate 
ourselves for this purpose on a doctrinal 
basis agreed upon in the first Convention 
in Kingston, under the designation of the 
‘Sabbath School Association of Canada.’ ” 
The resolution further provided for an 
Executive Committee and the appointment 
of a General Secretary to serve until the 
next convention. ‘The General Secretary 
appointed was Rev. William Millard. 

A Third Organization. At the sixth 
convention in Belleville, in October, 1869, 
the Rev. John McKillican, Agent of the 
Canada Sunday School Union, Montreal, 
presented greetings and appeared as dele- 
gate. At this convention also Mr. James 
McGuire, Agent of the “Sabbath School 
Missionary Union of Ontario,” appeared 
and reported. ‘Thus appears a new organ- 
ization which was created in Toronto in 
1868 at the instigation of the “Sabbath 
School Association of Canada,” to do 
missionary work in the Province of On- 
tario such as that Association felt should 
be done, but not by itself. There is 
little reference to this new organization. 
Its work was warmly approved and en- 
couraged at the Annual conventions. In 
1876 a full report of the “Missionary 
Union” was presented by Rev. John M. 
Cameron and the work of the Union was 
taken over by the Convention and com- 


198 


Canada 


mended to the generous support of the 
Sabbath schools. In 1879 the financial con- 
ditions rendered it impossible for the 
Sabbath School Association of Canada to 
continue the missionary work. 

To show that no boundary lines were 
recognized except national ones the third 
Sunday school convention or the second 
of the “Sabbath School Association of 
Canada” was held in Montreal on Septem- 
ber 4, 5 and 6, 1866, in Zion Congrega- 
tional Church, Principal Dawson of Me- 
Gill University being elected President. 
Also in 1872, at the request of the Canada 
Sunday School Union, the General Secre- 
tary of the Sabbath School Association 
of Canada made an extensive tour through 
the Province of Quebec, holding meetings 
in the larger centers. These meetings 
were in the nature of conventions. The 
Ninth convention was also held in Mon- 
treal in the year 1872, Bishop Bond being 
President. In 1870 an attempt was made 
by the Sabbath School Missionary Union 
of Ontario and the Canada Sunday School 
Union of Montreal to describe territorial 
bounds. At that time the Agent of the 
Canada Sunday School Union was work- 
ing far west in Ontario. 

CHANGES Come. As early as October 
27, 1862, the Agent of the Canada Sun- 
day School Union was instructed to effect 
county organizations. This is the point 
at which the Canada Sunday School Union 
began to change from a missionary organ- 
ization to the modern method of conyen- 
tion work. In 1869 and 1870 the “Sab- 
bath School Association of Canada” be- 
gan to employ all the time of its first 
General Secretary, Rev. William Millard. 
Among the honored American Sunday- 
schools workers who appear on the early 
programs of the Canadian Conventions 
are: Mr. R. G. Pardee (gq. v.), Mr. Philip | 
Phillips, Rev. W. H. Poole, Mr. Ralph 
Lovell, Rev.. John H. Vincent (gq. v.) 
(afterwards Bishop), Mr. William Rey- 
nolds (q. v.), Dr. John Hall and H. Clay 
Trumbull (gq. v.). | 

At the Ninth convention in 1872 was | 
received through the General Secretary 
the report from the Fifth National 
(American) Convention at Indianapolis. 
(See Conventions, S. S.) The invitation 
to foreign bodies to send deputations and 
the fact that a series of lessons for all 
the Sabbath schools of the land was con- 


i | 


Canada 


templated, led to the appointment of 
Rev. John Wood and the General Secre- 
tary, Rev. William Millard, as delegates 
to the Convention. They were accom- 
panied by others. An item in the report 
says, “We feel bound to state that the 
deputation was received with the greatest 
respect and entertained with large hos- 
pitality and Christian kindness, yet while 
we were the subjects of such brotherly 
love, we could not but regard and ac- 
knowledge it as paid to our own beloved 
Canada.” The request of Canada to have 
representation on the National Executive 
Committee and on the Lesson Committee 
is also reported as approved. Rev. J. 
Munro Gibson, M.A. of Montreal, and 
“Mr. M. A. Macallum of Hamilton, were 
elected as the Canadian Members to the 
International Lesson Committee and the 
International Executive. 

_ The Sunday School Association of 
Canada continued its regular Annual 
MIneetings with comparative success until 
the year 1879. In the spring of 1880, 
‘In view of the approaching Centenary 
of Sunday Schools and the series of im- 
‘portant meetings and demonstrations to 
be held in London and other cities in 
June and July that year, the Executive 
Committee requested the General Secre- 
tary, Rev. William Millard, to proceed to 
‘England to represent the Association 
‘there. Mr. Millard accepted the trust 
and visited England, but in view of his 
advanced years (72) his relatives in Eng- 
land prevailed upon him to remain. The 
absence of the Secretary, in part at least, 
explains the fact that there was no Con- 
vention in the year 1880. 

In 1881 the regular convention gave 
‘way to the Third International, which 
‘was held in Toronto, June 22, 23, and 
24. In the interim following the resigna- 
tion of Mr. Millard, Mr. James L. Hughes 
was appointed Honorary Secretary of the 
Association. In 1883 the Executive Com- 
‘Inittee appointed Rev. John McEwen as 
General Secretary. He began his work 
‘in May. He was succeeded in turn by 
Mr. Alfred Day, Mr. J. A. Jackson and 
Rey. HE. W. Halpenny, B.D. 

The work of the Canada Sunday School 
‘Union during these years had gone steadily 
on, developing its county convention work 
‘and still holding the old time Annual 
‘meetings. In connection with the Inter- 


199 


Canada 


national Convention in Chicago in 1887, 
it became evident that the International 
Convention was composed of delegates 
accredited by the Sunday School Associa- 
tions of the various States and Provinces. 
This led to material change in the work 
in Canada. Until this time the Sabbath 
School Association of Canada was regarded 
as representing both the Provinces of 
Ontario and Quebec. In order to bring 
the Sabbath School Association of Canada 
into proper relation to the International 
Association, the name was changed in 
1887 to the Sabbath School Association 
of Ontario, and thereafter its activities 
confined to that Province. The title re- 
mained thus until the time of incorpora- 
tion in the year 1908, when it was changed 
to “Ontario Sunday School Association.” 

Further, as a result of the indirect in- 
fluence of proper relationship to the In- 
ternational Convention, growing out of 
the Chicago Convention of 1887, a change 
was wrought in the name and aim of the 
Canada Sunday School Union. The dele- 
gates to the Chicago Convention of 1887 
were appointed by the Canada Sunday 
School Union, which was interprovincial 
in its scope and missionary in its charac- 
ter. At the Annual meeting in 1888 the 
Union resolved thereafter to confine its 
efforts to the Province of Quebec, to change 
its purpose and method of work to the 
organization of county and township as- 
sociations, holding of conventions, collect- 
ing of statistics, etc. To this end the con- 
stitution was changed, the name “Canada 
Sunday School Union” abandoned, and 
the organization incorporated under the 
name of the “Sunday School Union of the 
Province of Quebec.” In 1892 the Union 
appointed Mr. Stuart Muirhead as its 
first General Secretary. Rev. Mr. Mc- 
Killican retired from the office of Agent 
after thirty-one years of service. Mr. 
Stuart Muirhead was succeeded in office 
in turn by Mr. Geo. H. Archibald, Rev. 
EK. W. Halpenny, Rev. E. T. Capel and 
Rev. John G. Fulcher. 

The Maritime Provinces. Nova Scotia. 
Organized interdenominational Sunday- 
school work began in Nova Scotia with 
the establishment of the Halifax and 
Dartmouth Sunday School Association 
shortly prior to the year 1870. Quarterly 
meetings were held regularly at Halifax. 
In September, 1871, an association was 


Canada 


formed to embrace all the Sunday-school 
workers of the Maritime Provinces of 
Canada. The first convention was held at 
St. John, N.B., the second in the follow- 
ing year at New Glasgow, N.S. This 
association held annual conventions in the 
cities and prominent centers in these Prov- 
inces for fifteen years. At its Fourteenth 
Annual convention, held in the town of 
Yarmouth, N.S., in September, 1884, much 
emphasis was laid upon the importance 
of closer contact on the part of Sunday- 
schools workers. This led to the forma- 
tion, in 1885, of the Sunday School As- 
sociation of Nova Scotia, which held its 
first convention in the Autumn of 1885, 
at Windsor N.S. Similar conventions 
have been held each year since that date. 
At the convention in 1890 an additional 
step was taken in the employment of Mr. 
John Grierson, the first Field Secretary. 
He was followed by Mr. Stuart Muirhead 
and Rev. J. W. Brown, Ph.D. Follow- 
ing this in rapid succession the depart- 
ments of work were added. The Nova 
Scotia Association has set for itself high 
standards of efficiency, and ranks well 
among the Provinces in the success of its 
work, 

New Brunswick. In the spring of 1876 
two men, both of whom were Sunday- 
school superintendents, Mr. Edward W. 
Perry, M.D., and Mr. John T. Fletcher, 
met at Victoria Corners, Carleton county, 
N.B. Mutual interest in Sunday-school 
work led to earnest conversation and their 
enthusiasm resulted in the suggestion that 
the schools of Victoria Corners and Water- 
ville should unite. The suggestion was 
extended to include schools at one or two 
other points, and finally the entire County 
of Carleton, with the result that the first 
County Association in New Brunswick, 
the Carleton County Association, was or- 
ganized on July 5, 1876. A meeting of 
the Maritime Convention, referred to 
above, had been held in Woodstock pre- 
vious to 1876. In 1878 Carleton county 
was represented by official delegates in 
the Maritime Convention. In 1884 Mr. 
Samuel J. Parsons attended the Inter- 
national Sunday School Convention in 
Louisville, Ky., as a delegate from Carle- 
ton County Convention. From this con- 
vention Mr. Parsons returned filled with 
enthusiasm for Provincial organization 
which would give New Brunswick a proper 


200 


bl fod 


Canada 


standing. Operations were at once under- 
taken which resulted in the inviting of 
representatives from all over the Proy- 
ince to meet with the Carleton County 
Convention on August 12 and 13, 1884, 
Mr. Parsons reported the International 
Convention and a Committee was ap- 
pointed to consider the question of the 
larger effort in the organization of the 
Province. The report was favorably re- 
ceived and unanimously adopted. This 
resulted in a call which brought over 200 
delegates from ten of the fifteen counties 
to meet on October 30, 1884, in Cente- 
nary Methodist Church, St. John, N.B. 
Here the New Brunswick Sunday School 
Association was organized. County organ- 
ization throughout the Province was imme- 
diately pressed. 

The work grew until 1890, when the 
matter of appointment of a Field Secre- 
tary became a necessity. Rev. Aquila 
Lucas was appointed and entered upon 
his work in July, 1891. He was succeeded 
by Rev. J. B. Ganong and Rev. W. A. 
Ross, M.A. 

Prince Edward Island. The little 
Province of Prince Edward Island, the 
Garden of Canada, for a number of years 
held its regular conventions, and for a 
short period attempted the employment of 
a Field Secretary of its own. This, how- 
ever, proved too great an undertaking, and 
in 1905 the Associations of New Bruns- 
wick and Prince Edward Island were 
united under joint management. Since 
then they have been superintended by the 
same Secretary. They still hold an 
Annual convention in each Province. — 

The Western Provinces. Manitoba. 
On October 17, 1877, the Manitoba Sun- 
day School Association was formed at a 
convention held in the city of Winnipeg. 
Rey. James Robertson, D.D., was elected 
President, and Rev. E. W. Marrow, Secre- 
tary-Treasurer. The records show that 
Mr. Marrow, who for several years before 
going West had been a member of the Sab- 
bath School Association of Canada, was 
the moving spirit in the action which 
brought about the first of the organiza- 
tions in the West. Up to 1888 nothing 
was done to extend the work of the organ- 
ization or arouse interest in the Sunday- 
school work aside from the holding of An-' 
nual conventions. In the year 1888 Mr. 
William Reynolds, first Superintendent of 


bid 
anada 
she International Sunday School Associa- 
sion, being present at the Provincial Con- 
vention, urged upon the delegates the 
aecessity of county organization. This re- 
sulted in the formation of three county 
associations the following year. Others 
followed. 

In 1891 the Executive Committee felt 
the necessity of having a man in the field 
to give his entire time to the work, and 
recommended the same to the Provincial 
eonvention. Permission was given, and 
after diligent search they succeeded in 
securing Mr. W. H. Irwin of Brandon, 
who was engaged in January, 1892. Upon 
mtering the work he found almost all 
of the counties inactive. Mr. Irwin has 
sontinued in the office until the present 
(1913). His work has been very success- 
ful and the Manitoba Sunday School 
Association, stands to the front in effi- 
lency. 

_ Alberta and Saskatchewan. The work 
west of Manitoba was begun previous to 
the present arrangement of the Provinces. 
It was begun by the Manitoba Sunday 
School Association when what is now 
Southern Saskatchewan was known by 
the name of Assiniboia. A number of 
pastors and superintendents living in that 


territory, where the work of the church: 


had followed the development of the 
settlements, requested to be allowed to join 
the most southwesterly county Sunday 
school association of Manitoba. This was 
in the year 1899. Finding the territory 
embraced too large for one county associa- 
fion, in 1902 the territory west of the 
Manitoba boundary was organized into an 
independent organization, and in 1904 it 
was divided, forming what was then 
known as the Southeast Assiniboia Dis- 
trict Association, and the Moose Moun- 
tain Association. In 1906 the Saskatche- 
wan Sunday School Association was 
formed, and in 1907 the Moose Mountain 


District merged into the Saskatchewan — 


organization. In 1909 the Southeast 
Assiniboia District Association which had 
meanwhile been again subdivided, joined 
the Provincial Association of Saskatche- 
wan. 

, In 1901 the International Executive 
Committee requested Mr. W. H. Irwin, 
General Secretary of Manitoba, to do 
pioneer work in the Provinces of Sas- 


katchewan and Alberta and seek to. 


201 


Canada 


effect -Provincial organizations, with a 
view to reporting the same at the Inter- 
national convention at Denver in 1902. 
Considerable work was planned in the way 
of district conventions to lead up to Pro- 
vincial conventions, with a view to effect- 
ing Provincial organization. Much of 
the work planned was prevented because 
of extensive floods which damaged the 
means of communication. Notwithstand- 
ing this, the Province of Alberta was 
reached by a convention in Calgary in 
June, 1902, and the Provincial Associa- 
tion organized. This was followed by the 
organization of districts, and in each of 
the Provinces more or less regular Pro- 
vincial conventions were held. 

British Columbia. From the report of 
Mr. William Reynolds, made to the Sixth 
International Sunday School Convention 
in Pittsburgh, in June, 1890, we learn that 
he had just then returned from a trip 
through the West, working northward 
along the Pacific Coast as far as British 
Columbia, stating further that a conven- 
tion was held in British Columbia. This 
seems to have been the beginning of Pro- 
vincial organization in the far West Prov- 
ince. This organization continued for 
some years, but owing to the extent of 
the territory covered by the Pacific Coast 
Province and its’ natural division by 
mountains, Provincial conventions could 
not be representative. 

In the autumn of 1906 Rev. W. C. Mer- 
ritt, Internation! Secretary for the Pacific 
slope, visited the Ontario Sunday School 
Convention held in Kingston, October 22- 
24, having previously visited some of the 
leading workers of Ontario and assisted 
in launching a scheme whereby the Ontario 
Sunday School Association should engage 
a General Secretary for the Canadian 
Northwest. The proposition met with ap- 
proval, and in the early days of 1907 Mr. 
Stuart Muirhead, who had recently re- 
signed the General Secretaryship of Nova 
Scotia, was transferred to the Canadian 
West. By the autumn of 1907 Mr. Muir- 
head had succeeded in organizing an 
Eastern and Western British. Columbia 
Sunday School Association. These worked 
parallel for three or four years. 

So successful was Mr. Muirhead in his 
work, aided by the rapid development of 
the country, that by the middle of the 
year 1909 his work as special North 


Canada S. S. Union 


Western Secretary terminated, resulting 
in the establishment of greatly improved 
Sunday School Associations in Saskatche- 
wan, Alberta and the dual organization 
in British Columbia, with Mr. Muirhead 
as the first General Secretary in Saskatche- 
wan; Mr. H. F. Kenny, General Secretary 
of Alberta; and Rev. I. W. Williamson, 
General Secretary in British Columbia. A 
year or two later the British Columbia 
organizations merged into one. Mr. 
Williamson is still Secretary, Mr. Kenny 
having been succeeded in Alberta by Mr. 
F. E. Werry and Mr. Muirhead in Sas- 
katchewan by Rev. D. H. Wing. 
K. W. HALpenny. 

SrE Baptist CONVENTION IN CANADA; 
CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN CANADA; CoN- 
GREGATIONAL CHURCH IN CANADA; METH- 
ODIST CHURCH IN CANADA; PRESBYTERIAN 
CHURCH IN CANADA; ROMAN CATHOLIO 
CHURCH IN CANADA. 


CANADA SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION.— 
SEE Canapa, History oF THE ASSOCIATED 
S. S. WorkK IN THE DOMINION OF. 


CAPERS, WILLIAM (1790-1855).—A 
granite monument by the side of the 
Washington Street Methodist Church in 
Columbia, S. C., bears the following in- 
scription: “William Capers, born in St. 
Thomas’ Parish, South Carolina, on the 
26th of Jan., 1790, and died in Anderson, 
South Carolina, on the 29th of Jan., 1855. 
One of the Bishops of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South. The founder of 
missions to the slaves in South Caro- 
lina. Erected to the memory of the de- 
ceased by the South Carolina Confer- 
ence.” Before his election to the epis- 
copacy, Mr. Capers had been one of 
the most useful and beloved members 
of the South Carolina Conference. As 
a bishop he was one of the honored 
leaders in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. It is a significant fact, 
therefore, that when his brethren came 
to erect a monument to his memory they 
selected as his most signal service to the 
cause of Christ the fact that he was “the 
founder of missions to the slaves.” 

The life of Bishop Capers shows that 
he had been deeply interested in the wel- 
fare of the Southern Negroes from the 
very beginning of his ministry. He men- 
tions a number of Negro preachers who 


202 


rT 


ae | 
were noted for their piety, Christian zeal 
and usefulness and whom he evidently 
held in the highest respect. The movye-. 
ment for the establishment of missions! 
among the Negroes on the plantations was 
inaugurated in 1829, while Mr. Capers 
was presiding elder of the Charleston Dis-| 
trict. It began with the appointment of 
two missionaries and with Mr. Capers ag 
missionary superintendent. At the death 
of Bishop Capers there were twenty- 
six of these missions in South Carolina 
alone, and the movement for the system- 
atic religious instruction of the Negroes 
had spread over the entire South. . 
It is worthy of notice that, while no 
mention is made of Sunday schools among 
the slaves, the fact is emphasized by 
Bishop Capers’ biographer that “in con- 
nection with regular preaching, the cate- 
chetical instruction of young Negroes was 
constantly attended to,” and that “correct 
ideas of God, of duty, of the relations of 
time and eternity, of human accounta- 
bility—the foundation principles of Chris- 
tian character and life—were laid in the 
earliest years of these catechumens.” 
This accounts for the large and per- 
manent success of the work among these 
people. After making due allowance for 
the limitations of America’s present 
Negro population, it must be admitted 
that they are vastly superior to their an- 
cestors of a hundred and fifty years ago, 
and this superiority is due in large meas- 
ure to the missionary work among them 
in which Bishop Capers was an honored 


Seatac sh E. B. CHAPPELL, 
Reference: 

Wightman, W. M. Life of William 

Capers. (Nashville, Tenn.) 4 


CAREY, MATHEW (1760-1839).—An 
eminent publisher, politician, and philan- 
thropist; born in Dublin, Ireland. He 
became a printer and bookseller and pu 
lished a number of political articles. In 
1784 he emigrated to America and settled 
in Philadelphia. “He was the first 
Catholic of prominence in the publishing 
trade in the United States, and brought 
out in 1790 the first edition of the Douay 
Bible, printed in America.” He founded 
and conducted the Pennsylvania Herald 
and later published other periodicals and 
many pamphlets on subjects of public in- 
terest. F| 






Carey 
| 
_ Mr. Carey was one of the founders and 
‘the first secretary of the First-Day or 
Sunday School Society organized in 1791. 
|He was ever active in the public good. 

i Emity J. Feu. 

_ Reference: 

| Catholic Encyclopedia. 

| CAREY, WILLIAM.—Sre Baptist 
Sunpay ScHoots (GREAT Britain) ; 
First SunpDay ScHoots. 


CATECHETICAL INSTRUCTION.—I. 
Origins. The Catechetical, or question 
and answer method of religious instruc- 
tions had its origin in the early Middle 
Ages in the custom of examining converts 
from paganism prior to their being bap- 
tized. It was an Interrogatio de fide (In- 
terrogation concerning the faith) in which 
ithe candidates for Christian baptism, or 
later in the case of children by their 
sponsors, simply answered “I believe” to 
each of a number of questions. The first 
of these related to the renunciation of the 
world, the flesh, and the devil, and the 
others to the creed, the ten command- 
ments, and the Scriptures. 

__ From the baptismal ceremony the prac- 
tice of catechizing passed over into the 
church confessional, in connection with 
which the art of inquisitional questioning 
was first developed. Here the catechetical 
method was shamefully abused until many 
noble minded priests and bishops, even 
before Luther’s time, protested. At the 
same time popular expositions of the creed, 
Lord’s Prayer, commandments, cardinal 
sins, and church dogmas began to appear 
—sometimes with and sometimes without 
the use of the question and answer form 
of presentation. Toward the close of the 
Middle Ages, after the invention of print- 
ing had made their multiplication pos- 
sible, many catechisms appeared, both in 
the Catholic Church and among the pre- 
Teformation evangelical sects, Waldenses 
(q. v.), Hussites, and Moravian Brethren. 
From the best of these Luther gathered 
baat of the features which characterized 
his larger and smaller catechisms, first 
published in 1529. 

_ The Reformation catechisms, Lutheran 
and Reformed, agreed in general subject 
matter, both including the exposition of 
the creed, commandments, Lord’s Prayer, 
and the two evangelical sacraments. Both 


203 


Catechetical Instruction 


eliminated most of the objectional fea- 
tures of the earlier Catholic catechisms, 
such as the deification of Mary, the doc- 
trine of the mass, the confession, and the 
worship of images. The Heidelberg (Re- 
formed) Catechism differed from the 
Lutheran in division, arrangement, and 
method. It was more subjective and psy- 
chological, grouping its material under the 
three heads: (1) Man’s misery (through 
sin), (2) Man’s redemption, and (8) 
Man’s thankfulness (the life of the re- 
generate Christian). Luther's Catechism 
was theological and dogmatic in form 
and was early given symbolic importance. 
Its questions were few in number, short 
and uniform, and the answers correspond- 
ingly long. Following each command- 
ment or section of the creed or Lord’s 
Prayer was a single question, “What 
means this?” or “What use or value is 
there in so doing?” ete. The Heidelberg 
Catechism had several times as many and 
a much greater variety of questions. For 
use in the religious instruction of children 
in church and school, both the Lutheran 
and Heidelberg Catechisms were soon 
modified and improved. The material in 
the former was subdivided, the number of 
questions greatly increased, and the sev- 
eral articles supplied with introductory 
and connecting questions. An edition of 
the Heidelberg Catechism printed in 1610 
gives for the first time marginal rules for 
the guidance of teachers in their method 
of instruction. These were four in num- 
ber, as follows: 

1. Difficult expressions occurring in the 
text are first to be explained to the pupil. 

2. The pupil shall be accustomed to 
summarizing a longer paragraph or part 
in briefer form. 

3. The teacher shall ask such questions 
as may be answered from the text of the 
catechism (subdividing the subject matter 
of the longer printed answers) and thus 
analyze the text into its component parts. 

4, The catechism shall be verified and 
proved by means of Bible texts and nar- 
rative. 

This same catechism gives several model 
lessons, and seeks by means of typograph- 
ical form and arrangement and with mar- 
ginal hints further to aid the teacher. 

The Westmimster Catechism, prepared 
in England and sanctioned by Parliament 
in 1647, was based largely on the Re- 


Catechetical Instruction 


formed catechisms of Switzerland and 
Germany, the famous “shorter catechism” 
being more pronouncedly Calvinistic than 
the longer. It begins with the celebrated 
question “What is the chief end of man? 
To glorify God, and to enjoy him for- 
ever.” It defines the fall and misery of 
man; explains the office of the Redeemer 
and the work of the Holy Ghost, and dis- 
cusses effectual calling, justification, adop- 
tion, and sanctification. It agrees with 
other Reformed catechisms and with the 
Greek Church (against the Lutheran and 
Roman) in making “Thou shalt not make 
unto thee any graven image,” etc., the 
second commandment, and including in 
the Tenth both prohibitions of coveting. 
According to Schaff, it surpasses both 
Luther’s and the Heidelberg Catechisms 
“in clearness and careful wording, and 
is better adapted to the Scotch and Anglo- 
American mind, but it lacks their genial 
warmth, freshness, and childlike sim- 
plicity. ” 

II. Later Catechetical Method. The 
seventeenth century was a time of war 
and desolation in continental Europe, and 
method in Protestant religious instruc- 
tion after its initial advance made little 
progress. Toward the close of the century 
the Pietistic revival brought another im- 
provement in the method of catechizing 
children, and an enriched subject matter, 
including especially also Bible narratives 
and memory texts. The _ prevailing 
method at the beginning of the eighteenth 
century is reflected in the official examples 
found in many of the school ordinances of 
that period. Most of these can be traced. 
to the examples found in the ordinance 
for the Francke Foundations at Halle, 
adopted in 1702. The success and fame 


of these institutions made Halle the chief © 


center for the training of German. teach- 
ers, for several decades after the adoption 
of this famous ordinance which covers 
every phase of school organization and 
management as well as the more specific 
method of imparting instruction. Grad- 
ually, however, the superior method advo- 
cated by Francke (gq. v.) lapsed into dead 
formalism and a system of mechanical 
memorization. 

Another revival and improvement of the 
catechetical form of religious instruction 
came with the rise of the so-called So- 
cratic method in general education which 


204 





Cedar Rapids Plan 


dates from about 1776. This method 
reached its culmination in the first decades 
of the nineteenth century and from 1830 
on declined rapidly. Its permanent con-. 
tribution to educational method was pre- . 
served in the larger psychological movye-. 
ment begun by Pestalozzi (qg. v.), and, 
mightily augmented by Herbart (q. v.),. 
and Froebel ( q. v.). The Socratic method | 
is based on the thought that instruction 
does not consist in imparting information 
to be stored in the memory, but in the de- 
velopment of ideas in the mind of the 
pupil. This it sought to accomplish by 
prearrangement of the subject matter, 
beginning with that which is near and 
present to the senses of the child, and pro- 
ceeding by means of an interesting con- 
versational method from this to general 
and abstract ideas in such a manner as to 
permit the pupil at each step to discover 
for himself the new or added element of 
truth. The earlier method gave the facts 
or truths to be memorized; the Socratic 
method led the pupil to discover these 
facts and truths for himself, and this by 
means of skillful and appropriate ques- 
tioning which stimulates mental self- 
activity and leads to independent think- 
ing. Our chief interest n the Socratic 
method is historical. In modified form it 
is still in vogue in much of the catechetical 
instruction given in European countries 
and in Lutheran and Reformed churches 
in America. Since the middle of the last 
century it has been superseded in the best 
religious instruction by some adaptation 
of the so-called. Herbartian method of 
which its essential elements have become 
a constituent part. 
H. H. Meyer. 
References: 

The original catechisms; standard 
source books in history of education, 
especially Monumenta Pedagogica Ger- 
maniae; articles on catechisms in 
standard encyclopedias of religion and 
education. | 


CATECHISMS.—Srr  CarTEcHETICAL. 
INSTRUCTION. | 
CATHOLIC BOYS’ BRIGADE.—Szx 


Boys’ BRIGADE. 


CEDAR RAPIDS PLAN.—SEeE ARoHI- 


TECTURE, S. S. 


| 


Chalmers 


| CHALMERS, THOMAS (1780-1847) .— 
|The sixth child of a family of fourteen. 
His father, John Chalmers, was a small 
shopkeeper in Anstruther in Fife. At the 
_ age of three he went to a carelessly taught 
parish school. Neither at home nor at 
| school did he show any tendencies to study 
nor indications of genius, but at college in 
| St. Andrews, where he went when twelve 
years of age, his intellectual birth time 
came and mathematics was a favorite 
study. Associating with some of the ex- 
treme Radicals of those days, he came in 
‘contact with the question of the social 
condition of the masses which so pressed 
upon him in later years. He became a 
student of divinity at fifteen, and was 
licensed as a preacher in 1799, when nine- 
_ teen years of age. In 1802, he was parish 
/minister of Kilmeny. For ten years he 
_earried on his work in the small parish, 
devoting his leisure to mathematics and 
chemistry, but in 1809, the death of sev- 
eral relatives, and a severe and dangerous 
illness, brought him face to face, as he 
_ says, with the “littleness of time and the 
greatness of eternity.” From this date 
his power and fame as a preacher and 
orator rapidly developed, and in 1814, he 
_was elected minister of the Tron Church 
in Glasgow, but was transferred in 1819 
to the new Church of St. John’s, with his 
parish among the poorest people of the 
Calton district. In Glasgow, Edinburgh, 
_and then in London, crowds waited on his 
‘ministry and his eloquence was such that 
Wilberforce, the friend of Pitt, says: “All 
the world is wild about Dr. Chalmers” ; 
and Lord Jeffrey, writing in 1816 after 
hearing Chalmers, says: “It reminds me 
more of what one reads as the effect 
of Demosthenes than anything I ever 
heard.” 
_ He became professor of moral philos- 
_ophy in St. Andrews in 1823, and in 1828 
exchanged to the professorship of theol- 
ogy in the University of Edinburgh, which 
he resigned at the disruption in 1843, and 
was at once appointed principal and pro- 
fessor of theology in the Free Church 
College, which office he held until his 
death in his sixty-eighth year. 

Dr. Chalmers’ interest in and develop- 
ment of local Sabbath schools arose out of 
his great scheme for the relief of the poor 
without rates and without the stain of 
pauperism. For a time he devoted him- 


205 


Chalmers 


‘self almost entirely to this subject. His 


theory was that throughout Scotland the 
church should support the whole destitute 
poor. He offered to the authorities to re- 
linquish all claim upon the fund raised 
by legal assessment, and to provide for the 
poor in his parish of 10,000 souls out of 
voluntary contribution at the church 
doors, which he did. The cost at that 
time was £1400 per annum, and for four 
years not only was the expense defrayed, 
but he had reduced the claims to £280 a 
year, and had a surplus on hand of £900. 
After his transfer to Edinburgh the 
scheme was maintained for eighteen years, 
but gradually dropped out of existence. 
No other parish made a similar attempt— 
the church and state were in difficulties 
on other matters—the disruption was at 
hand, and in 1845 a New Poor Law for 
Scotland was enacted and Dr. Chalmers’ 
experiment was abandoned. The general 
principles, however, form the basis of 
relief of the Elberfeld system adopted so 
largely in German towns and elsewhere. 
In his system of relief the whole parish 
was divided into small sections over which 
one individual, and one only, was respon- 
sible for all relief given. He was expected 
to know every family and every individual 
in his particular sphere, ascertain their 
circumstances, help and advise when 
necessary, and through the Church Com- 
mittee grant such relief as was required, 
always as friendly assistance, not as a 
legal right. 

In dealing with their temporal affairs 
Dr. Chalmers did not overlook the spirit- 
ual—he recognized that poverty was 
largely a question of character, and he 
aimed at the uplifting of the people 
through religion. To this end he estab- 
lished small Sabbath schools all over St. 
John’s Parish, and the teacher of each 
was to be responsible for all the children 
in his section, meeting in kitchens and 
all sorts of places wherever accommoda- 
tion could be had for the ten, twenty, or 
thirty children who could be gathered 
together from two or more contiguous 
tenements. Often the space was much 
too limited for the number, but the system 
gave many earnest men and women a 
sphere of Christian labor wherein their 
influence among parents and children 
alike was a power for good. The visita- 
tion of each house in their district and 


Character Development 


regular appearance in their midst gave a 
friendly, personal touch to the work 
which, in right hands, brought the benefit 
of the school into every home in the circle. 
JAMES CUNNINGHAM. 
References: 

Chalmers, Thomas. Christian and 
Owic Economy of Large Towns; abr. 
and ed., by C. R. Henderson. (London, 
1900.) 

Hanna, William. Memoirs of Thomas 


Chalmers. 4v. (New York, 1850.) 
Oliphant, Theo. JLtfe of Thomas 
Chalmers. (London, 1893.) 


CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.—Srxr 
EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE S. 8.; 
ETHICAL CULTURE, SOCIETY FOR; GIRL, 
THE City, AND THE §S. S.; INDUSTRIAL 
GUILD OF THE GREAT COMMISSION; 
Mora AND RELIGIOUS EpucaTion, TESTs 
or ErriclIENcy IN; Morat PRACTICE; 
Pustic ScHoots (UNITED STATES), 
Morat INSTRUCTION IN THE. 


CHARLES, THOMAS (1755-1814).— 
Familiarly known as “Charles of Bala.” 
He was educated at Carmarthen and Ox- 
ford University, and as a young man put 
himself in touch with the leaders of the 
Evangelical movement. After ordination, 
he served as a curate in the Episcopal 
Church, but from 1784 onwards identified 
himself with Calvinistic Methodist (Pres- 
byterian) Church of Wales. [This name 
was applied to a church of the Presby- 
terian order which claimed to be the only 
denomination of purely Welsh origin in 
Wales. | 

In a few years he made a national repu- 
tation as a preacher and writer. From 
the early days of his public labors he was 


an enthusiastic advocate of education. In. 


conjunction with Griffith Jones (gq. v.), 
from 1785 onwards, he did much to pro- 
mote what were known as “circulating day 
schools,” by paying a teacher who was 
“moved circuitously from one place to 
another, for the purpose of instructing 
poor children in reading, and in the first 
principles of Christianity by catechizing 
them.” Four years later, Charles turned 
his attention to Sunday schools in Wales. 
In his early labors as a clergyman, he had 
given special attention to the catechizing 
of the children, but finding the influence 
of such labors to be limited, he was led to 


206 


Charles 


advocate the formation of Sunday schools, 
where systematic Biblical instruction 
could be given, not only to young people, 
but to adults. 


He began his work by inviting the 


young people of Bala to his house on Sab- 
bath evenjngs for the purpose of religious 
instruction. Such interest was excited by 


his experiment, that at length it became 


needful to secure a chapel in which the 
school could be carried on. From this 
beginning, there sprang a national move- 
ment in Wales, of which Charles was the 
inspirer and leader. By his own state- 
ment, it is clear that he found the Sunday 
school to be a better instrument of reli- 
gious education than the “circulating day 
school.” 
initiated by Charles, was destined to be 
the most powerful instrument in mold- 
ing the religious life of the Welsh people; 
an influence remaining until the present 
day. 


place to Bible study. He applied to two 
of the great religious societies in London 
for supplies of Bibles for Wales. 
he found his applications were ineffectual, 
he strongly advocated the formation of a 
society for the distribution of the Scrip- 
tures. Largely as a result of his advocacy, 
the great “British and Foreign Bible 
Society” was organized. 
clety, British and Foreign.) The memo- 


The Sunday-school movement 


y ‘ 
In all his plans Charles gave the central — 


When 


(See Bible So- 


rizing of Scripture passages, combined 


with public catechizing, formed the es- 


sential features in the Sunday schools of 
Wales. (See Wales, S. 8S. Work in.) 

This article may fittingly close with the 
following testimony borne by Charles to 
the influence of the Sunday school: 


“The spirit of learning has rapidly 


spread among young people and children 
in large populous districts, where hitherto 
it had been wholly neglected; and the 


reformation in their morals has been gen- 


erally evident and satisfactory to all. 
Their usual profanation of the Sabbath, 


in meetings for play or in public-houses, 
has been forsaken; and the Sabbaths are. 
now spent in the schools or in religious 
exercises. The attention is engaged with 
such intenseness, that in some instances | 
which I have known, the greatest part of 
the night is spent in learning chapters or - 
in searching the Scriptures on points 
given them to be elucidated by Scripture 


Chautauqua Institution 


passages. All will easily perceive how 
rapid the progress in the acquisition of 
divine knowledge must be, when the mind 
is so attentively engaged, if assisted by 
proper instruction. It has been great and 
very rapid. I have known young people 
emerge at once, as it were, from a state of 
idleness, profaneness, and ignorance, to 
diligence, sobriety, and pleasing attention 
to divine things. They are delighted with 
the work: and you may distinguish those 
who are thus engaged, from the idle and 
ignorant, by the comfort and joy mani- 
fested in their countenances.” 
CarEY BONNER. 
References: 

Hughes, William. JLtfe and Letters 
of Thomas Charles. (Rhyl, Wales, 
1881.) 

Morgan, Edward, ed. SHssays, Let- 
ters and Interesting Papers of Thomas 
Charles. (London, 1836.) 

Morgan, Edward. Memoir of the 
Infe and Labours of Thomas Charles. 
(London, 1828.) 


CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION.—This 
institution has-been characterized as the 
greatest agency in the world for popular 
education. It is located at Chautauqua, 
N.Y. The name is derived from an In- 
dian phrase which means “the place where 
the fish was taken out.” The activities 
fall under three general heads: (1) The 
‘public assembly, with its educative, 
‘though necessarily popular program of 
lectures, addresses, entertainments, con- 
certs, etc., (2) the summer schools, offer- 
Ing formal classroom instruction in a 
variety of subjects during July and 
‘August, and (3) the home reading work 
which, unlike the others, is operative 
throughout the year and not confined to 
locality, nor even to the United States. 
It was for training Sunday-school 
teachers in the best methods of work that 
Chautauqua was founded in 1874. John 
H, Vincent (gq. v.), then head of the Sun- 
day School Department of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church throughout the United 
States, had become profoundly impressed 
with the need of something moré than 
printed suggestions and the occasional 
visit of leaders like himself to increase 
the efficiency of teachers. The feeling of 
solidarity, the sense of common responsi- 
bility in a work of great social impor- 


207 


Chautauqua Institution 


tance, was needed. The inspiration of 
personal contact and of concrete identity 
with groups of persons similarly engaged, 
and the consecutive, cumulative effect of 
expert instruction and stimulating public 
address day after day for such a term as 
could be devoted, would, he believed, give 
an altogether new impetus to Sunday- 
school work. In short, he wanted a Sun- 
day-school institute. He began to pro- 
mote the idea. Dr. Vincent consulted 
Lewis Miller of Akron, Ohio, a layman 
widely known for his progressive ideas in 
Sunday-school work and for his liberal 
support of educational enterprises. Mr. 
Miller heartily concurred in Dr. Vincent’s 
idea, but believed that in order to make it 
successful, it should be given the novelty, 
the wholesomeness and sanity, the phys- 
ical simplicity and recreative charm of an 
outing in some attractice spot. Mr. 
Miller favored Chautauqua Lake, where 
Sunday-school picnics had been held for 
some years, and more recently camp meet- 
ings had been conducted. 

Dr. Vincent objected to the outdoor 
proposal and to the Chautauqua location 
because he did not wish the undertaking 
to be confused with the purely emotional 
character of many camp meetings. His 
project was an educational one. He 
wished to emphasize the necessity for close 
thinking, serious study, and a rational 
adaptation of methods in order to achieve 
results. Dr. Vincent wished to promote 
a broad intelligence concerning the Bible 
as the authoritative basis of Christian in- 
struction, to regard the principles: of ped- 
agogy, and so far as possible to regard 
science, history, and the work of culture. 
Finally, Mr. Miller’s outdoor recom- 
mendation prevailed. The experiment 
was tried in the woods at “Fairpoint” on 
Chautauqua Lake. 

So far all was for the benefit of Meth- 
odist Sunday-school teachers. The Sun- 
day School Union of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church formally instituted the 
Chautauqua Sunday School Assembly, as 
the name then was; and the whole matter 
was referred to their committee on normal 
work, which was composed of John H. 
Vincent, Henry- M. Simpson, J. C. 
Thomas, and two lay members. When 
the working organization of the Sunday 
School Assembly was formed, Lewis 
Miller was elected president, John H, 


Chautauqua Institution 


Vincent, superintendent of instruction, 
and Henry M. Simpson, secretary. The 
objects were to awaken interest in normal 
training among pastors, superintendents, 
and teachers of Sunday schools through- 
out the denomination, to command the 
best talent in the country for the teaching 
force, and to unite daily study with health- 
ful recreation. ‘The course of normal 
study already prescribed by the Normal 
Work Committee was to be followed. 

At one of its first meetings the com- 
mittee passed a resolution as follows: 
“Whereas the course of study is in sub- 
stantial agreement with that adopted by 
the normal departments of the Baptist, 
Presbyerian, and American Sunday 
School Union boards, and as the leading 
workers in these and other branches of 
the Christian Church will be at the as- 
sembly to assist by their experience and 
counsels, and as it is our purpose to make 
the occasion one of the largest catholicity, 
the committee cordially invite workers of 
all denominations to attend, and to par- 
ticipate in the services of the assembly.” 
People of all denominations did attend 
and the first meeting in 1874, was phe- 
nomenally successful, and when a second 
larger assembly: followed, steps were taken 
to acquire the property and make the in- 
stitution permanent. “The Children’s 
Temple” at Chautauqua, erected in 1878, 
and presented to the Assembly by Lewis 
Miller for its Sunday school, was the 
recognized prototype of those now famil- 
iar buildings in which little classrooms 
with movable partitions between range 
about one central and circular or semicir- 
cular room, 

Lectures on other than Biblical and 
religious themes had been given from the 


first, and many recreative features had 


been introduced. By 1878, there had 
grown a strong feeling that some agency 
was needed by which the impulses of the 
brief summer session might be made ef- 
fective throughout the year. The Chau- 
tauqua Literary and Scientific Circle was 
the result. Such numbers joined the first 
class for the four-year course of study 
that despite having been given unduly 
hard tasks with the resulting discourage- 
ment and loss of members, in 1882, at 
the end of the four years they graduated 
eight hundred at Chautauqua, while a 
thousand more received their diplomas 


208 





' 


Wf 


Chautauqua Institution 





by mail. The class of 1882 was not the 
largest one. So unique was the idea, so 
heartily was it approved by men of note, 
so eager were thousands of people for the 
benefits of such a scheme, and so con- 
tagious was the enthusiasm awakened 
that without much direct promotive effort 
the classes grew spontaneously year by 
year and continued to do so till well into | 
the 790s. | 

The three branches of Chautauqua work | 
were now pretty well defined. The na-. 
tural development of the original purpose 
early led to several broadly educational 
undertakings. The Chautauqua Literary 
and Scientific Circle, founded in 1878, 
spread quickly to every state and to sey- 
eral foreign countries; the School of Lan- 
guages was extended to include pedagog- 
ical courses in 1880, and under the late 
William R. Harper became a system of 
fourteen summer schools. For ten years. 
the Chautauqua College of Liberal Arts 
and School of Theology (under the title 
of Chautauqua University) conducted 
correspondence courses in college and 
theological subjects until endowed uni- 
versities took up this work and relieved | 
Chautauqua of its burdens as a pioneer, 
In 1888, Chautauqua was a leader, under 





_ the late Herbert B. Adams, in adapting 


English university extension methods to 
American conditions. In 1898, Chautau-| 
qua voluntarily surrendered to the State 
of New York the power to grant degrees, 
and in 1902, received a new special 
charter under the name Chautauqua In- 
stitution. 

The Chautauqua summer session has 
been gradually lengthened from twelve 
days to sixty; the daily program has been. 
steadily strengthened and enriched; the 
platform has been kept in sympathetic re- 
lations with the best things of national. 
life; the home reading course has been 
more and more nicely adjusted to the 
needs of Chautauqua readers. The mate-| 
rial development of the Institution has 
kept pace approximately with its expand-_ 
ing life. The original assembly plot con-. 
tained fifty. acres. The Institution now 
owns 333 acres. | 

It is estimated that between fifty and 
sixty thousand persons for a shorter or 
longer period each summer are attendants 
upon the assembly program. An average 
summer population at Chautauqua at the 





Chautauqua Institution 


height of the season is about twelve or 


fourteen thousand. ‘The summer schools 


have about three thousand enrollments 
annually and give instruction under four- 
teen departments, as follows: English, 
Modern Languages, Classical Languages, 
Mathematics and Science, Psychology and 
Pedagogy, Religious Education, Library 
Training, Domestic Science, Music, Arts 
and Crafts, Expression, Physical Educa- 
tion, Agriculture, Practical Arts. On the 
faculty of these schools, numbering over 
one hundred persons, are represented most 
of the leading universities in America. 
The marvelous growth of the reading 
circle work in its early years could not in 
the nature of things continue. The or- 
ganization of correspondence schools, the 
adoption of correspondence as a method 
of instruction by the universities, the ac- 
tivity of women’s clubs in other directions 


than cultural reading, and a variety of 


influences have turned into diverse 
channels of activity those impulses which 
for a decade and more found their only 
outlet through the Chautauqua Literary 
and Scientific Circle. The home reading 
work, however, has continued to be of use 
to thousands of readers and about sixty 
thotisand have persevered through the 
four-year course of reading to graduation. 
After a period of decline it has entered 
upon an entirely normal phase of develop- 
ment, has adapted its course to the ascer- 
tained needs and requirements of home 


_ readers, and offers annually a set of read- 


quan Magazine. 


ing material which consists of four books 
and the weekly numbers of the Chautau- 
This periodical was 


merged with The Independent, June 1, 


1914. The course deals one year with the 


United States, the next with modern con- 


- tinental Europe, then with classical lands 
_ and’times, and finally with Great Britain, 
_ thus completing the four-year cycle and 


_ Teturning to the United States. 


When- 


ever a person enters, he makes that the 
first year of his course and graduates four 


| 


_ years thereafter. 


Chautauqua is an educational institu- 
tion, chartered as such under the laws of 


_ New York State, and involves no element 
of private profit, any surplus in a given 
_ year going to strengthen the activities of 
_ the next or to make permanent improve- 


' ments. 


i 


The affairs of the Institution are 


administered by a board of twenty-four 


209 


Chautauqua Institution 


trustees—twenty chosen by the board 
itself and four by cottage owners, that is, 
lease holders at Chautauqua. On its edu- 
cational side it has the advice of an edu- 
cational council of men, distinguished in 
university life, in the field of letters, or in 
other intellectual pursuits. George H. 
Vincent, President of the University of 
Minnesota, is also President of Chautau- 
qua Institution ; and his venerable father, 
John H. Vincent, one of the two founders, 
now (1914) a retired Bishop of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, is Chancellor of 
the Institution. 

Revenue is derived from gate fees (cov- 
ering admission to public lectures, con- 
certs, etc., within the grounds), by special 
tuition fees from students in the summer 
schools and home reading courses, by 
charges’ upon rentals and business con- 
cessions, and by voluntary contributions. 
There is an endowment fund amounting 
in round numbers, to $63,000. The re- 
sources of the Institution are appraised 
at a little over one million dollars. Of 
this amount the real estate is estimated 
at $270,000, buildings $440,000, power 
plants, sewer and disposal works, and 
water works $120,000, sundry and per- 
sonal property $32,000, stock holdings 
$90,000, accounts and bills receivable 
$30,000, trust funds $60,000. The la- 
bilities of the Institution amount to 
$400,000 represented by a bond issue of 
$220,000, accounts and bills payable of 
$115,000, and debts upon the new build- 
ings and land purchases of $65,000. 

Although the name “Chautauqua” has 
been adopted by some hundreds of organ- 
izations, to describe an educational enter- 
prise, the original Chautauqua Institu- 
tion has no organic relation with any of 
the other assemblies. The Institution, 
however, maintains fraternal relations 
with many of them and as they have 
adopted its name and some of its methods, 
it is glad to give them the benefit of its 
experience. As a member of the Interna- 
tional Chautauqua Alliance, Chautauqua 
Institution holds a somewhat closer rela- 
tion to a few of those independent assem- 
blies which work together toward the ad- 
vancement of educational purposes. An 
interesting development in recent years is 
the organization of bureaus, each of which 
manages from a dozen to a hundred or 
more programs in as many towns, and 


Chautauqua Institution 


moves its speakers and entertainers in 
troups from place to place. 

On its religious side, Chautauqua has 
always maintained the ideals of the early 
days, though adapting itself to changing 
conditions. The formal religious features 
of any summer’s program are noteworthy, 
including Sunday sermons by preachers 
of national reputation, daily devotional 
hours, the great Assembly Sunday school, 
public services for children, religious in- 
struction on both the pedagogical and the 
inspirational side offered by the summer 
schools, voluntary religious exercises of 
denominational groups, and the confer- 
ences of missionary societies and other 
religious bodies that elect to make Chau- 
tauqua their gathering place. Nine dif- 
ferent denominations maintain permanent 
headquarters at Chautauqua and hold 
their own Sunday ‘and midweek exercises 
while joining all together at stated times 
in the general service at the amphitheater. 
In the amphitheater itself the sermons are 
by noted preachers of the various denomi- 
nations. The churches thus represented 
are the Baptists, Congregationalists, Dis- 
ciples, Protestant Episcopalians, Luther- 
ans, Methodist Episcopalians, Presbyte- 
rians, Unitarians, and United Presbyteri- 
ans. Still other branches of the church 
are largely represented though without 
formal organization of their own as yet. 
In 1912, the Society of Friends held their 
General Conference at Chautauqua. In 
short, the spirit is one of catholicity and 
of hospitality. The sentiment and pur- 
poses of religious life pervade the work 
of the platform and of the classroom and 
the intercourse of the place even more 
than they proclaim themselves by any par- 
ticular function or observance. Bishop 
Vincent in his book, The Chautauqua 
Movement, has made comment upon this 
fact and has explained it as follows: “The 
theory of Chautauqua is that life is one, 
and that religion belongs everywhere. 
Our people, young and old, should con- 
sider educational advantages as so many 
religious opportunities. There should be 
no breaks between Sabbaths. The cable 
of divine motive should stretch through 
seven days, touching with its sanctifying 
power every hour of every day.” 


210 


Chautauqua Institution 


beyond question, may be said to have 
found their first practical demonstration 
on a large scale at Chautauqua. ‘This 
was promptly recognized both in the 
United States and abroad. The great 
potential value of the margins of time in 
an educational way—the spare minutes 
of a day for reading and the vacation 
weeks that are accorded most Americans 
in summer for study and attendance upon 
good lectures and entertainments—is an- 
other of what may be called the Chautau- 
qua discoveries. Individuals here and 
there had found it out for themselves; 
but as a general fact of broad social sig- 
nificance Bishop Vincent, more than 
any other man of any time, has given it 
force. 

That the outlook upon life and culture 
which is implied by a liberal education 
may be acquired from a moderate amount 
of reading in plain English, though the 
full and identical content of what the 
schools and colleges give is not thus ob- 
tained, and that much of the disciplinary 
value which the student draws from his 
Greek or mathematics will come to the 
thoughtful mechanic from his tasks, or 
the house mother from the earnest admin- 
istration of her family affairs, was an 
early doctrine of Bishop Vincent’s which 
has been substantiated in thousands of 
lives. One or another of these ideas 
underlies the university extension work, 
the growth of correspondence instruction, 
the large development of summer schools; 
and all these movements as they have 
taken shape in the United States owe 
much to Chautauqua as a pioneer. 

While part of its early activities have 
been passed over to specially adapted 
agencies, Chautauqua continues those — 
which either exclusively or in common 


with other institutions it seems best fitted 


to carry on. It has afforded a meeting | 
ground for the gathering of forces which | 
have inaugurated great agencies like the 
W. C. T. U., the organization committee | 
for which was formed at Chautauqua in ~ 
1874, It is still a clearing house of ideas 
and offers an open forum for the discus- _ 
sion of all thought and opinion to which 
good people adhere or in which they 
sincerely disagree. 


Theodore Roosevelt, 


after his visit there in 1905, called it “the 1) 
most American thing in America.” Its 
annual assembly in July and August is _ 


The possibilities of adult education, 
extending well past middle life, since 
studied in a scientific way and “proved 


Chautauqua Society, Jewish 


the greatest center for popular education 
in the world. E. H. BuicHFELpr. 


References: 

Adams, H. B. Higher Education of 
the People—The Work of Chautauqua, 
The Independent, Sept. 2% and Oct. 4, 
1888. 

Bray, F. C. A Reading Journey 
through Chautauqua. (Chautauqua 
Press, 1905.) 

James, William. Talks to Teachers 
on Psychology. Part II, Chap. i. 
(New York, 1902.) 

Miinsterberg, Hugo. American 
Trats. Chap. XVI. (Boston, 1902.) 

Vincent, G. E. Monographs on Edu- 
cation. No. 16. (St. Louis, 1904.) 

Vincent, J. H. The Chautauqua 
Movement. (Boston, 1886.) 


CHAUTAUQUA SOCIETY, JEWISH.— 
The need of a widespread system of pop- 
ular education on the history, literature, 
and religion of the Jews was impressed 
upon the mind of Rabbi Henry Berkowitz 
by years of travel and experience in the 
various sections of the United States. He 
was thereby prompted, after his settle- 
ment in Philadelphia, in 1892, to propose 
the establishment of such an educational 
movement. The well-known and well-tried 
methods of the Chautauqua Literary and 
Scientific Circle, combined with certain 
features of the kindred organization 
known as the University Extension Society, 
seemed best adapted to the needs of the 
Jewish people widely scattered throughout 
the country. He therefore proposed to his 
congregation, and later to a Committee on 
Organization held in Philadelphia, April, 
1893, the establishment of the Chautau- 
qua system of Jewish education. Official 
arrangements were made with the Chau- 
tauqua Society for the adoption of its 
Name and methods, and the plan was 
formally presented by the founder at the 
Jewish Congress, held in Chicago in con- 
nection with the World’s Columbian Ex- 
position. 

Propaganda. In 1905 the field secre- 
tary department was created. Active pro- 
paganda throughout the United States, 
and especially in the similar communities, 
-Tesulted in practical constructive efforts 
along Jewish lines, which have proved of 


211 


Chautauqua Society, Jewish 


the utmost importance. In 1912 the Cor- 
respondence School for Religious School 
Teachers was organized. 

Assemblies. In 1895 the Society estab- 
lished its first assembly, and in connection 
with the annual assembly the Jewish 
Teachers’ Institute gathers together year 
after year the men and women engaged in 
developing Jewish education in the United 
States. 

University Summer School. In 1909, 
the Society began its work among the 
bummer schools of the universities by 
sending instructors and lecturers to the 
University at Knoxville, Tenn. In 1912, 
an instructor and lecturer was sent to the 
University of Virginia, at Charlottesville, 
and the work there is to be continued. 
Similar courses of instruction are designed 
to be instituted. 

Correspondence School Method. The 
adequacy and value of the correspondence 
method of instruction has been abundantly 
proved by years of experience in some of 
the leading universities and other educa- 
tional agencies in America. 

The courses offered are not mere “hand- 
books” or “guide-books” for teachers, but 
they provide a continuous and systematic 
plan of study and give the stimulus and 
inspiration of direct communication with 
the instructors. The Biblical, rabbinical, 
and critical views on mooted questions are 
stated, but the lessons aim to be serviceable 
to all teachers, whether Reform, Orthodox, 
Conservative, or Radical. 

Circle Work. Courses of study for indi- 
vidual readers or members of study cir- 
cles are offered by the Society and con- 
sist of thirteen subjects. They are in the 
nature of a syllabus or course book ar- 
ranged in a definite, methodical, and sys- 
tematic outline of work by a specialist in 
each department of study. They are ar- 
ranged so as to be introduced into organ- 
ized study circles, such as Y. M. H. A., 
study circles of the Council of Jewish 
Women, Bible classes, history clubs, liter- 
ary societies, intellectual culture of the 
B’nai P’rith, etc. 

South Jersey. In March, 1910, initial 
steps were taken to inaugurate educational 
and religious work in the colonies of South 
Jersey. The secretary made an investiga- 
tion of the educational and industrial con- 
ditions in seven colonies, namely: Norma, 
Alliance, Brotmanville, Six Points, Rosen- 


Chicago Training School 


hayn, Garton Road, and Carmel. Twelve 
hundred children from the ages of five to 
sixteen reside in these colonies. The work 
is under the direction of Rabbi Benjamin 
L. Grossman, of the New York Theologi- 
cal Seminary, and the supervision of the 
secretary of the Chautauqua Society. 
North Dakota. This work was so suc- 
cessful that in April, 1911, similar in- 
vestigation was made in the Jewish settle- 
mentsof North Dakota, known as the Bur- 
leigh and McIntosh county settlements, 
located at Ashley and Canfield, N. D. 
So promising was the outlook that work 
cognate with that of South Jersey was 
inaugurated April, 1912, and has been 
extended into Wishek, Lehr, Minot, Re- 
gan, and contiguous territory. (See Jews.) 
HENRY BERKOWITZ. 


CHICAGO TRAINING SCHOOL.—The 
establishment of the Chicago Training 
School, in 1885, for city, home and foreign 
missions, marked an epoch in Christian 
education. The conviction had been gain- 
ing ground that training should be pro- 
vided for general Christian, mission, and 
social work, as well as for the work of the 
formal ministry, and the Chicago Train- 
ing School was the first to embrace in its 
plan the entire field of religious and social 
training for work of a world-wide scope. 
(See Religious Training Schools.) 

The institution is organized into: The 
Graduate School, open only to graduates 
from approved colleges; The Undergradu- 
ate School, to which are admitted women 
holding high school diplomas, or having 
an equivalent preparation; and the Eng- 
lish School, which offers courses prepara- 
tory to the Undergraduate School. 

The studies form the following groups: 
1. Bible, including New Testament Greek ; 
2. Church history and missions; 3. Reli- 
gious education, with the Sunday school 
emphasized ; 4. Social service; 5. Church 
finance and efficiency ; 6. Home economics ; 
%. Elocution and physical culture; 8. 
Foreign languages, including phonetics 
and general linguistics; 9. Music. 

The school offers preparation for the 
work of home and foreign missions, social 
service, religious education, the deaconess 
vocation, and has a department for women 
who find their life work in the domestic 
circle, and all study is conducted in the 
spirit of scientific thoroughness. A care- 


212 


- 


Child Conversion 


fully selected library supplements the in- 
struction given. 

Eleven resident instructors give full 
time to the school, and, in addition, there 
are twenty-two nonresident instructors, 
who supplement the work by courses of 
lectures. Other men and women, eminent 
in missions, religious education, and 
social service, give frequent lectures before 
the students. 

The Chicago Training School places 
special emphasis upon practical work. 
The city constitutes a laboratory in which 
the students carry on the work under the 
direction of the Field Director of the 
faculty, the city pastors and other reli- 
gious leaders, the United Charities, the 
Juvenile Protective Association, ete. 
Weekly trips of inspection are conducted 
to places of sociological interest. 

Denominationally the school is Meth- 
odist Episcopal, but members of all de- 
nominations compose its student body. Its 
annual enrollment is more than 200. In 
1913 a federation was formed with the 
Presbyterian Training School of Chicago, 
by which the two schools codperate, though 
each preserves its autonomy. Lucy Rider 
Meyer, A.M., M.D., is the principal of the 
school, with whom is associated her hus- 
band, Josiah Shelley Meyer. 4 

Lucy Riper MEYER. 


CHIDLAW, BENJAMIN WILLIAMS 
(1811-92).—One of the early Sabbath- 
school missionaries of the American Sun- | 
day School Union. He was born and died 
in Wales. Mr. Chidlaw began his mis- 
sionary work in 1836 and continued his 
service for forty years. He was affection- 
ately called “Father Chidlaw.” 

S. G. Ayres. 


CHILD CONVERSION.—As an expe-. 
rience child conversion is quite differ- | 
ent from conversion as an experience of 
the adult sinner. The latter is a delib- 
erate turning from a life of sin to a life | 
of faith in God and obedience to the will 
of God. It is always preceded by an. 
awakening to a consciousness of sin and 
by a longing for pardon and cleansing. | 
The act of turning is an act of the indi- | 
vidual, but the power by which the indi- 
vidual is enabled to turn is from God. 
God works in him enabling him to will 
and to do according to his good pleasure. — 

There are cases in which this whole 





Child Conversion 


process is gradual and takes place without 
any violent wrench in the individual’s 
life. But there are also many cases of 
sudden awakening accompanied by intense 
remorse and in which the subsequent 
emergence into a new life of spiritual 
freedom and joy in the consciousness of 
pardon and sonship, reminds one of the 
experience of the cripple who was healed 
through the agency of Peter and John at 
the door of the temple. But the expe- 
rience is fundamentally the same whether 
it is gradual and calm, or sudden and 
violent. In both instances it is, on the 
human side, a repudiation of sin and a 
surrender of self to God in Christ, and 
on the divine side the impartation of en- 
abling grace for the beginning of a new 
life. (See Crises in Spiritual Develop- 
ment, ) 

In order to understand how child con- 
version differs from this adult experience, 
it is necessary to take account of certain 
significant facts of child nature. One of 
the most important results of recent psy- 
chological investigation is the definite 
establishment of the fact that man has a 
religious nature, and that his religious na- 
ture is subject to the same general laws 
and conditions as his other native capac- 


ities—that is, if neglected it tends to. 


atrophy, but if properly nurtured and 
trained, it develops normally as the life 
of the individual unfolds. This implies 
the possibility of real and effective reli- 
gious education. It may be added that 


this possibility is clearly implied in the | 


teaching of both the Old and New Testa- 
ments, 

The child is uniformly recognized as 
a being endowed with religious capacity 
and the most careful provision is made 
for his religious training. (Deut. 5: 6-9; 
81:12, 18; 32:46; Eph. 6:4; 2 Tim. 
3: 14-16.) “From the days of Abraham,” 
says Trumbull, “systematic ‘instruction’ 
had its place in the plans of the chosen 
people of God. From the days of Moses 
the Jewish Church had a measure of re- 
sponsibility for the religious training of 
the young. From the days of Ezra the 
Bible school was a recognized agency 
among the Jewish people for the study 
and teaching of God’s word.” (H. C. 
Trumbull. Yale Lectures on the Sunday 
School, p. 43.) 

It must be observed, however, that while 


213 


Child Conversion 


this view of child nature implies that the 
child may have a real religious experience, 
it also implies that his religion must cor- 
respond to his capacity and therefore to 
the stage of development which he has 
attained. In other words, there is a reli- 
gion of childhood, just as there is a reli- 
gion of adult life, and even the religion 
of a child changes as the child’s hfe un- 
folds. This is clearly implied in the 
striking words of St. Paul (1 Cor. 
13:11): “When I was a child, I spake as 


_a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a 


child.” 

In the religion of a child even of tender 
years we find the premonitions and begin- 
nings of all the qualities that belong to 
the religion of the mature man. For the 
child is not, as is sometimes assumed, in- 
capable of reverence and faith and love. 
They exist in him, however, as temporary 
emotions rather than as fixed and per- 
manent attitudes. He is a creature of 
impulses, and not of settled convictions. 
His experiences, being determined by in- 
terests that are momentary and largely 
unrelated, are fragmentary. “He has no 
unified and proportioned conception of 
himself,” (A. S. Ames. The Psychology 
of Religious Experience, p. 201.) He is 
dazzled by the sights and sounds of the 
external world. “He looks without and 
not within; at the near rather than the 
remote; at the present rather than the 
future.” (G. A. Coe, The Spiritual Life, 

. 82.) 

‘ These general characteristics of the 
child mind must of necessity determine 
the religion of childhood. One should 
not be surprised, therefore, to find that 
the child’s religion is largely a matter 
of external observances and obedience to 
external commands, and only to a very 
limited extent a matter that possesses 
inner significance. This religious expe- 
rience, limited as it is, is not only real 
and genuine so far as it goes, but also 
profoundly important, since it prepares 
the way for the richer and deeper expe- 
riences that are to follow. As Froebel 
puts it, “The vigorous and complete de- 
velopment and cultivation of each succes- 
sive stage depends on the vigorous, com- 
plete, and characteristic development of 
each and all preceding stages of life.” 

About the ninth year in the life of the 
normal child a marked change begins to 


Child Conversion 


manifest itself. His interests begin to 
widen. He begins to be conscious of him- 
self as a social being and to realize vaguely 
the meaning of his social relations, and 
there arises within him a new sense of 
moral obligation and a new desire to as- 
sume his rightful place in the social order. 
For a time these inner changes, as a gen- 
eral rule, proceed slowly; but with the 
oncoming of the period of adolescence they 
are vastly accelerated. The social nature 
at this time bursts into full power, and 
the youth finds himself the subject of 
“new kinds of sensation and of emotion, 
new modes of thought, new attitudes of 
will,” a new appreciation of moral and 
spiritual values, and is brought face to 
face with most of the complex problems 
of duty that belong to adult life. 

During this period of the shifting of 
the center of life there generally takes 
place a radical change in the child’s or 
youth’s religious experience. Investiga- 
tions show that while this change fre- 
quently comes before the age of twelve, in 
a large majority of cases it falls between 
twelve and eighteen. Sometimes the 
change is gradual, but often it marks a 
crisis almost as sharp as does sudden adult 
conversion and is attended by many of its 
characteristic emotional accompaniments. 
In both cases, however, the experience is 
fundamentally the same, and what is said 
above in regard to child nature and the 
development of child life should help one 
to understand its meaning. 

When the child or youth begins to be 
conscious of himself as an individual and 
as a being with social relations and social 
responsibilities, there arises the necessity 
for a corresponding readjustment of his 
religious experience. It must, so to speak, 
be personalized and socialized. He “must 
assume full responsibility for the status 
and trend of his religious life, with which 
his self, his social and religious conscious- 
ness, brings him face to face. He must 
choose for himself whether he will hence- 
forth love and serve God and his fellow 
men, or whether he will repudiate the re- 
ligious teaching of his childhood and 
lapse again into a life of narrow selfish- 
ness.” (H. H. Meyer. The Graded Sun- 
day School in Principle and Practice.) 

It will be seen at once that this deci- 
sion may involve an intellectual as well as 
a moral struggle; for it requires not only 


214 


the personalizing of the youth’s religious 
experience, but also the voluntary and in- 
telligent adoption as his own of his inher- 
ited religious beliefs. This accounts for 
the fact that the experience is often 
marked by painful questionings and be- 
wildering doubts. (See Doubt, Dealing 
with, in the S. S.) 

Accepting this as a true account of con- 
version as an experience of childhood or 
youth, one is led to the conclusion that it 
marks an exceptionally important stage 
in the child’s religious development and 
does not indicate its beginning. It is 
“the conscious attainment of religious 
freedom and independence with an ac- 
companying fuller surrender of self in the 
voluntary assumption of religious and 
social obligations.” It does not discredit 
the religion of early childhood. It means 
only that the child must be religious as a 
child, and that in many cases the transi- 
tion from the simple, naive religion of 
childhood to full religious self-conscious- 
ness is accompanied by more or less of 
doubt and spiritual struggle. 

It is sometimes urged as an objection 
to this view of the religion of childhood 
that it seems to do away with the neces- 
sity of the birth from above and of the 
operation in the life of the Holy Spirit. 
This objection is based upon the assump- 
tion that the Holy Spirit is entirely 
absent from the ordinary and normal 
processes of the child’s development and 


appears and is active only at certain cru- 


cial points in his experience. 

This assumption is contrary both to 
reason and to the plain teaching of the 
Scriptures. John the Baptist was “filled 
with the Holy Spirit even from his 


mother’s womb,” and the declaration of | 
Jesus that the kingdom of heaven belongs ~ 
to little children implies the possibility of | 
the child’s possessing at least in some 


rudimentary fashion those virtues which 


Child Conversion 


St. Paul designates as “the fruit of the. 


Spirit.” 


In a little book written by a 


prominent Methodist theologian almost 
half a century ago, one finds the following | 
significant utterance: “How is it ascer- 


tained that the Spirit of God begins to 


work in the heart of a child at some par- | 
ticular period along the course of its life? — 
This restricts the grace of God to a period. | 
I think this grace begins with life itself, | 
long before the child has any understand- | 


— 7a 


Child Labor 


ing about it. There is no graceless period 
in childhood.” (R. Abbey. Christian 
Cradlehood.) In Education in Religion 
and Morals Prof. Coe declares that, in- 
stead of persistently looking upon edu- 
cation as “something done for the child 
by his elders,” one might do well to think 
of it more as “something wrought within 
the character by the divine Spirit.” 

In a word, Christian parents and teach- 
ers are but the agents through whom the 
Spirit works for the quickening and nur- 
ture of the child’s religious life, and the 
gradual unfolding of a young life in 
spiritual strength and beauty is just as 
miraculous, just as much a work of the 
Spirit, as the sudden conversion of a 
hardened sinner. (See Religion, The 
Child’s, and its Culture; Religion, Psy- 


chology of.) E. B. CHAPPELL. 


CHILD LABOR.—SeExr CHILD WELFARE 
IN THE U. S.; CHILD WELFARE MOovVE- 
MENT; CHILDREN’S BUREAU. 


CHILD, SPIRITUAL STATUS OF THE. 
—The plan of treatment, as including 
both history and criticism, gives occasion 
to notice the following topics: 

(1) Views of the spiritual status of the 
child obtaining in later Judaism. 

(2) Views entertained by the Christian 
Fathers. 

(3) Views current among medieval 
Scholastics. 

(4) Views held by Christian commun- 
ions in the modern period. 

(5) Biblical teaching bearing on the 
subject in hand. 

(6) The conclusions favored by reason 
and observation. 

1. The position of later, or post-canon- 
ical, Judaism is significant in a twofold 
respect. On the one hand, it indicates 
how the people which had been trained in 
the Old Testament revelation understood 
its statements relative to the condition in 
which men are born. On the other hand, 
in its orthodox or Pharisaic phase, it 
represents the point of view which had 
been instilled into the mind of Paul, and 
so affords probable evidence for the inter- 
pretation of the New Testament writer 
who, far more than any other, enlarges on 
man’s natural state. 


The literature of post-canonical Juda- 


ism assumes, for the most part, that sen- 


215 


Child, Spiritual Status 


tence of bodily death was passed upon the 
human race because of the sin of the first 
parents. The writings of Philo, it is true, 
seem not to reflect this assumption; but 
it occurs with sufficient distinctness in 
Ecclesiasticus (25:24), in the Wisdom 
of Solomon (2:24), in Second Esdras 
(3:7), and in the Apocalypse of Baruch 
(23:4). That guilt, as well as mortality, 
attaches to men because of the primal 
trespass, is a point of view quite foreign 
to this entire literature. As respects the 
inheritance of tendencies to sin, the posi- 
tion taken was not so unequivocal. Occa- 
sionally a somewhat emphatic view of 
such tendencies came to expression. 
Second Esdras in particular affords an 
example (3:21; 4:30). But even here 
the entailed corruption seems not to be 
referred so much to the specific sin of 
Adam as to the “evil heart” which was in 
him prior to his disobedience. Further- 
more, in later Judaism generally the in- 
born tendency to sin was not regarded as 
so controlling as to cancel moral freedom 
in its subjects. In short, the more stal- 
wart theory of original sin did not pre- 
vail in this domain. (Compare EHder- 
sheim, The Life and the Times of Jesus 
the Messtah, Vol. I, p. 5.) 

2. The Christian Fathers of the first 
three centuries generally agreed with 
later Judaism in supposing physical death 
to have been entailed upon the race by the 
fall of the first parents. A probable ex- 
ception appears in case of Clement of 
Alexandria (Strom. 3. 7; %. 11.) The 
Fathers of this period were also generally 
united in the conclusion that the results 
of the fall did not strike so deep as to 
cancel moral freedom. With scarcely 
less unanimity they repudiated the notion 
that the descendants of Adam are so re- 
lated to his sin as to be born in a state of 
guilt. Irenseus, it is true, made consid- 
erable account of the headship of Adam 
(Cont. Haer., Vol. 16. 38, 21. 1); but he 
construed it in a vague mystical way, and 
leaves it doubtful whether he viewed the 
race as actually implicated in the guilt 
of the first trespass. ‘Tertullian in one_ 
instance speaks of the entire race as being 
tainted in their descent from Adam, and 
as being “a channel for transmitting his 
condemnation.” (De testimonio anima, 
3.) However, this is not saying that the 
condemnation is prior to the personal 


Child, Spiritual Status : 


misdeeds to which the transmitted taint 
solicits. It is noticeable, furthermore, 
that Tertullian’s creed did not prevent 
him from speaking of childhood as “the 
innocent period of life.” (De baptismo, 
18.) In relation to transmitted sinful 
tendencies theological opinion at this 
stage was, for the most part, quite moder- 
ate. Even Tertullian, who is reputed to 
have taken the most emphatic position on 
this point, declares: “There is a portion 
of good in the soul, of that original, di- 
vine, and genuine good which is its proper 


nature. For that which is derived from 
God is rather obscured than _ extin- 
guished.” (De anima, 12.) 


With Augustine, at the beginning of 
the fifth century, a marked advance was 
made in the estimate of the spiritual dis- 
aster which resulted to the race from the 
original trespass. In sharp reaction from 
the Pelagian contention that men are 
born without guilt, taint, or impairment 
of freedom, the powerful North African 
Father went on to maintain a most un- 
compromising doctrine of the guilty par- 
ticipation of all men in Adam’s trespass 
and of their utter bondage under sin until 
released by the grace of regeneration. 
“All that are born mortals,” he affirmed, 
“have the wrath of God with them, that 
wrath which Adam first received.” 
(Tract in Joan, 14. 13.) “The whole 
race of which he was the root was cor- 
rupted in him.” (Huchirid, 26.) “There 
was one mass of perdition from Adam.” 
(Serm. 26.) 

This somber view of man’s condition by 
birth was destined to be propagated 
through broad tracts of Western Christen- 
dom. In the Greek Church, on the other 
hand, it was never really appropriated. 
Various Greek theologians may have ac- 
knowledged in a general way the two- 
fold status of guilt and corruption in the 
posterity of Adam. But the Augustinian 
emphasis was wanting. With substantial 
unanimity the theology of the Greek 
Church continued to assume that a de- 
gree of moral freedom was conserved to 
men in spite of their adverse heritage. 

3. The medieval Scholastics, as a body, 
agreed with Augustine, in describing 
man’s natural state, or condition by birth, 
as including both guilt and corruption 
of nature. Abelard was quite outside the 
current in excluding the former element. 


216 


Child, Spiritual Status 


In interpreting the corruption of nature, 
or inborn tendency to sin, some of the 
Scholastics adhered essentially to the very 
emphatic theory of Augustine. This 
holds true of so representative a theolo- 
gian as Thomas Aquinas. But all through 
the medizval period, there was a meas- 
ure of dissent from the Augustinian esti- 
mate of inborn sinfulness, and in the 
latter part of the period the dissent 
reached to notable proportions. Room 
was made by Alexander Hales, and later 
by the Scotist and Occamist schools, for a 
degree of moral ability in men, so that 
even prior to regeneration they are not 
mere passive subjects of divine grace, but 
have a certain competency either to co- 
operate with or to reject that grace. 

4. In the modern period the Roman 
Catholic Church has been committed by 


the authoritative decisions of the Council 


of Trent to the inclusion of both guilt 
and corruption in man’s natural state. 


To this extent, the Augustinian doctrine 


has been established. The outcome, how- 
ever, in that church has been considerably 
removed from strict Augustinianism. 
The tendency to modify the element of 


Se ot 


hereditary corruption, which was conspic- — 


uous in the closing era of medieval 
Scholasticism, continued to work, and 
came practically into the ascendant in 
the victory of the Jesuits over the Jan- 
senists as consummated in the bull Uni- 
genitus (1713). 

The Protestant communions in their 


ambition to exalt divine grace, as against 


ecclesiastical expedients for heaping up 
human merits, resorted in the first in- 


stance to the strict Augustinian platform © 


—the guilt and radical enslavement to 


sin which comes by inheritance from 
Adam. Lutherans and Reformed held 


alike to this platform. A notable excep- 
tion, however, appeared in the ranks of 
the latter, in that Zwingli rejected the 
element of guilt. The early Socinians 
agreed with Zwingli on this point, and 
besides qualified very appreciably the 
notion of hereditary corruption. 

In the early part of the seventeenth 


century a fruitful reaction against the | 


more stringent theory was inaugurated by 


the Arminians in Holland. Their exclu- | 


sion of the element of guilt was followed 


to a noticeable extent in the Anglican 
Church from the time of James I. A 





Child, Spiritual Status 


like view in the course of the eighteenth 
and nineteenth centuries became current 
in New England Congregationalism and 
won an appreciable following among the 
Lutherans and the Reformed in Europe. 
Though not formally adopted by Method- 
ists at the start, this view has become 
largely characteristic of their teaching. 
In general, recent times have witnessed a 
marked tendency to modify the vigorous 
Augustinian tenet. 

The prevalence of evolutionary theories 
in the last few decades has led individual 
theologians in various communions to 
substitute for the notion of an evil inher- 
itance from the sinning Adam the idea of 
an inheritance of animal propensities 
from a brute ancestry. ‘These propen- 
sities, it is admitted, involve a very serious 
‘task, since a demand to moralize them, or 
to bring them under rational control, rests 
upon the individual from the first dawn- 
Ing of responsible agency. At the same 
time, a question is raised as to whether 
the propensities can be accounted ab- 
normal. In so far as they are needed to 
serve aS a motive power in men, and are 
posited by the ordained creative process, 
there would seem to be no valid occasion 
to deny their normality. On the other 
hand, an abnormal aspect will attach to 
them, if it be assumed that the aggrava- 
tion to which they are lable, through a 
‘perverse ordering of life, is in any degree 
transmissible from one generation to an- 
other. In respect of this point a, scien- 
tific verdict has not yet been thoroughly 
matured, 

This much at least can be said: On ac- 
count of the intimate physical connection 
of the parents with the child, the bearing 
of all connection on the nervous organ- 
ism, and the important function of this 
organism in determining the measure of 
atural impulsions, it is quite possible, 
hot to say probable, that an aggravation 
of native propensities may be, in greater 
or less degree, transmissible. It goes be- 
yond any clearly ascertained scientific de- 
mand to bar out the admission of a cer- 
tain residuum of truth in the traditionary 
doctrine of an adverse inheritance from 
ancestral error and sin. 

__ 5. It has been noticed that the parties 
‘standing historically nearest to the Old 
and the New Testament respectively held 
less definite and less emphatic views of 


| 
BY, 


217 


Augustinian tenet. 


Child, Spiritual Status 


original sin, or man’s spiritual condition 
at birth, than came forth in later theol- 
ogy. This fact carries a suggestion that 
the later doctrinal construction may have 
gone beyond the warrant of the Biblical 
data. So far as the Old Testament is con- 
cerned, the given suggestion is undoubt- 
edly in the right. The Hebrew Scriptures 
are remote from supplying a basis for the 
Neither in the story 
of the fall, nor in any later connection, 
do they distinctly associate human sinful- 
ness with the Adamic trespass. To be 
sure they repeatedly emphasize man’s 
moral frailty and bent to sim. In a less 
number of instances (as in Job 14:4) 
they place a certain stress upon continuity 
in sin. But this continuity is not pushed 
to the point of involving men in guilt at 
birth. So far is the inborn tendency to 
evil from being viewed as:a ground of 
reprobation that it is rather esteemed a 
reason for divine clemency. ‘This is wit- 
nessed, as Dillmann observes, by sentences 
in Genesis, Job, and the Psalms, (Alfé- 
test. Theologie, p. 378.) 

The New Testament agrees with the 
Old in the general recognition of the fact 
of human sinfulness. In the person of 
one writer it goes beyond the standpoint 
of the Old Testament in making an ex- 
plicit connection between this sinfulness 
and the primal trespass. Paul, in carry- 
ing out the antithesis between Adam and 
Christ, pictures the former as being, 
through his transgression, the fountain- 
head of sin in the race. Indeed he uses 
language which is capable of suggesting 
the Augustinian dogma respecting the 
common inheritance of guilt as well as 
of corruption of nature. This is espe- 
cially true of Rom. 5:12-19 and Eph. 
2:3, the one passage speaking of the 
sinning Adam as a source of condem- 
nation, and the other describing men 
as being “by nature children of wrath.” 
Still a close inspection of Paul’s teaching 
is fitted to engender a serious doubt as to 
his intention to represent the birth con- 
dition of men as properly a condition of 
guilt. The apostle, it is to be observed, 
does not say that the trespass of Adam is 
immediately a ground of condemnation. 
We are left free to suppose that it is such 
only mediately, that is, as being initia- 
tive of the bent to sin which is all too 
likely to generate the transgressions which 


Child, Spiritual Status 


invoke condemnation. In this view, con- 
demnation would not actually strike the 
individual till after personal acts of dis- 
obedience. That this was really the apos- 
tle’s point of view is strongly suggested 
by parallel representation. He felt 
free to speak of believers as having died 
to sin, or suffered crucifixion to the world, 
when Christ died upon the cross (2 Cor. 
5:14; Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20). Here evi- 
dently we have a graphic form of expres- 
sion in which the ultimate result is car- 
ried back and merged with the primary 
ground. 

As a matter of fact believers do not die 
to sin, or experience crucifixion to the 
world, save as in detail they exercise faith 
and self-surrender. Analogously we may 
conclude that men do not actually come 
into condemnation save as they declare, 
through personal transgression, their as- 
sociation with the sinning Adam. A sim- 
ilar consideration applies to the phrase “by 
nature children of wrath.” Paul himself 
has indicated that the words “by nature” 
need not be understood of a condition 
resulting simply from birth. In Romans 
2:14 he speaks of the Gentiles as doing 
by nature the things of the law. LEvi- 
dently he did not mean that they were 
born doers of the law, but only that they 
were born with a nature adapted to pro- 
vide in the course of its unfoldment for a 
sense of moral obligations. In _ like 
manner the phrase in Ephesians may rea- 
sonably be taken as meaning, not that 
men are born children of wrath, but only 
that by birth they have a nature which 
tends to such personal choice and conduct 
as invite the divine displeasure. 

We conclude, then, that on the ground 
of his recorded words Paul cannot justly 
be made a sponsor for the theory of hered- 
itary guilt. We may add that this under- 
standing of Paul’s position finds support 
in the fact that neither as a student of 
the Old Testament, nor as a disciple of 
the Pharisaic school, did he encounter 
any valid occasion to embrace the theory 
in question. 

While Paul is not in evidence as an 
advocate of the notion that men are born 
into a state of guilt, Paul’s Master is on 
record as negativing that idea. This he 
does in the pregnant declaration respect- 
ing little children, “Of such is the king- 
dom of heaven.” (Matt. 19:14; Mark 


218 


' 
Child, Spiritual Status, 


10:14; Luke 18:16.) These words un- 
equivocally denote that little children, all 
the newly born, are innocent and uncon- 
demned members of the divine Kingdom, 
Their standing in that Kingdom may not 
be altogether secure. Indeed, there are 
indications that Christ had an acute! 
sense of the moral exposure and prone-| 
ness to sin which pertain to the condi-| 
tion and nature of all who are born into) 
this world. But manifestly, in his view, | 
no one starts as an alien or as an outcast, 
He heralds the blessed truth that children 
are born in the light of the divine favor 
and begin their earthly career within the 
borders of the heavenly Kingdom—already' 
its members. | 
6. The conclusion which the Scriptures 
permit and invite us to accept is happily 
the one which alone reason is able to sane- 
tion. In the doctrine of hereditary guilt) 
it finds insuperable difficulties. After all, 
that its most skillful advocates have urged 
in its behalf that doctrine remains dis- 
tinctly incredible. If it be said that all 
men were in Adam so as to take part in 
his sin, it must be answered that only 
free personalities can sin, and that in that) 
character men were not present in Adam, 
If it be claimed that Adam stood by di 
vine appointment as the representative 0] 
the race, so that his sin could be ac 
counted the sin of the race, it must be 
replied that it does grievous injury 
the thought of the divine justice to sup: 
pose that God could have invented the ar 
bitrary scheme in which myriads of mer 
are made guilty sinners without thei 
knowledge, action, or consent. If it b 
argued that an evil tendency was trans 
mitted from the sinning Adam, and tha’ 
this tendency as being in the newh 
born makes them fit objects for the divin 
condemnation, it must be contended tha 
simple misfortune calls rather for clem~ 
ency than blame, and that a disabilit) 
which in no sense was produced by it 
subject is for that subject nothing els 
than misfortune. it 
No doubt it is to be admitted that th) 
moral personality which is yet at the in 
cipient stage is not an object of divin 
complacency in just the same sense as i 
a soul which, through discipline and con 
secrated activity, has reached the goal 0 
perfect righteousness and love. But thi 
admission in no wise collides with th 










| 
| 


Child, Spiritual Status 


truth that God’s smile is upon the little 
child, and that he is distant by a whole 
‘diameter from viewing him as an object 
‘of condemnation. In short, unsophisti- 
-eated reason will not consent to blot the 
picture of the state of little children con- 
‘tained in the Gospel sentence “Of such 
is the Kingdom of Heaven.” 

On the question of the presence in the 

child of tendencies which may easily be- 
come an obstacle to the spiritual ideal, 
and which commonly do work to its prej- 
‘udice, observation certainly will not per- 
mit us to assert a negative. At the same 
time, it will not justify us in giving those 
tendencies anything like an _ exclusive 
emphasis. The child is a mixed subject 
In nature and in manifestation. The ego- 
istic, the selfish, and the passionate have 
‘a place in him. At least he is given to 
emotions which would fall under those 
designations in one possessed of moral 
Insight and power of self-direction. But 
impulses that bear the aspect of the ami- 
able, the attractive, and the good, impulses 
‘m the direction of affection, sympathy, 
‘kindness, admiration, reverence, and obe- 
dience also demonstrate their presence in 
him, Like the imperfect Christian he is 
‘not all of a piece; and, if he appears at 
any disadvantage in comparison with his 
elders it is largely due to the fact that he 
gives full expression to his wayward im- 
pulses instead of covering them up in the 
‘secret places of the heart after the manner 
‘of the adult. 
_ The child is unmistakably a subject for 
Piety from the first dawning of moral in- 
telligence. In essence piety is inward 
committal to an ideal recognized as pos- 
‘sessing ‘superior worth and as involving 
an obligation to special devotion. The 
child’s ideal must of course be of a type 
to match his limited outlook. But there 
‘is no reason why, under normal training, 
it should not reach toward the true and 
Tounded Christian life. 

To maintain heart loyalty to his simple 
ideal doubtless makes no trivial task for 
the child. But a task involving a degree 
‘of moral strenuousness is good for every 
“moral agent. Moreover, the child is not 
left to his unaided abilities. The benevo- 
lence of the God who ministers the dew 
and the sunlight to the flower guaran- 
tees that he will nurture by the gentle in- 
fluences of his Spirit every bud of reli- 


: 


219 


souls of the young. 


Child Welfare Exhibits 


gious promise in the plastic and sensitive 
H. C. SHELDON. 


CHILD WELFARE EXHIBITS.—More 
than a million and a half have been in 
attendance at the child welfare exhibits 
which have been held in the past few 
years. In many cities the child welfare 
exhibit holds the record attendance among 
large gatherings and exhibitions. In 
many more, oft-recurring statements from 
social workers, business men, working- 
men, and mothers agree that “this is the 
biggest thing that ever happened in our 
city; this will bring together and 
strengthen all work for the children.” 

Popular enthusiasm such as this has 
attended few movements. The first ex- 
hibit, held in New York in January, 1911, 
grew slowly and hesitatingly into shape. 
It began nearly three years before in plans 
for a large Sunday-school exhibition. 
The scope of this was widened to include 
a display of all the forces that affect the 
city child. Gradually a classification of 
these unclassified forces was made, which, 
with adaptations, has seemed to fit the 
need of city after city. The simple state- 
ment of the committees among which the 
floor-space was divided will show how 
comprehensive this classification was: 


The Home Libraries and Museums 
The Street Philanthropy 
Recreation Settlements 

Work and Wages Clubs 

Health Churches 

Education Law 


Under all these headings were shown 
by photographs, models, inscriptions, 
charts, and living demonstrations, the con- 
ditions affecting children, and the best 
ways yet proposed for dealing with those 
conditions. 

Before the New York exhibit closed, 
Chicago had arranged for all of the mate- 
rial to be transferred to that city, where, 
supplemented by an equal amount of 
Chicago material, it was shown in the 
magnificent exhibit in May, 1911. 416,- 
000 was the attendance in the two weeks 
of this exhibit. Its influence was felt 
throughout the city, and it formed the 
most noticeable topic of conversation. 

Almost immediately a demand from 
Kansas City, St. Louis, and Montreal 
proved that the child welfare exhibit was 


/ 


Child Welfare Exhibits 


desired in cities which could not possibly 
contemplate the enormous expenditures 
made in New York and Chicago. Ex- 
hibits equal in size and general effect be- 
gan to be produced at about one tenth the 
original cost. This was made possible 
by securing buildings rent free, by radical 
changes in materials, by the use of such 
features in decoration and general con- 
struction as could be borrowed or cheaply 
bought, and by the general policy of re- 
quiring interested organizations to furnish 
their own photographs. A large and 
effective exhibit, covering 30,000 square 
feet of floor space, can now be managed 
for $5,000 for the central fund, while 
small but very effective exhibits, in towns 
or rural communities, have been held for 
$1,000 or less. 

During 1912, exhibits were held in St. 
Louis, Montreal, Northampton, Buffalo, 
and Louisville. Northampton was the 
first of the “small town” exhibits, and 
was remarkably successful, leading, 
among other things, to a $25,000 school 
building in the congested Polish district. 
Conditions had been reported for six 
years without avail, but four photographs 
in the exhibit did the work. 

By 1913, it had become almost impos- 
sible to keep the record of the number of 
exhibits. Providence, Rhode Island, and 
Rochester, N. Y., held large exhibitions 
in the early part of the year, followed by 
a smaller exhibit in New Britain, Conn., 
and other less important exhibitions in 
several New England towns. The de- 
mand for trained directors so far exceeded 
the supply, and the need for suggestive 
literature became so great that early in 
1913 a National Child Welfare Exhibition 
Committee was finally organized. Its im- 
mediate work is: 

1. To assist communities intending to 
give child welfare exhibits, 

(a) By supplying them with informa- 

tion in regard to past exhibits. 

(b) By visiting them, when desired, 
organizing the committees 
and planning the work. 

(c) By recommending, when desired, 
directors of exhibits, and by 
training such directors. 

2. To spread abroad, through exhibits, 
ideas and results of researches which the 
Children’s Bureau (gq. v.), or the National 
Children’s societies may desire to publish, 


220 


Child Welfare Exhibits 


but for the exhibiting of which they have 
no available funds. 

A little later Massachusetts organized, 
a state committee to promote and direct 
exhibits in the cities, towns, and rural 
communities of that state. This was) 
largely the result of the Northampton) 
success. f 

At about the same time the National 
Conservation Exposition, Knoxville, 
Tenn., set aside a child welfare building, 
under the chairmanship of Miss Julia 
Lathrop, chief of the Federal Children’s 
Bureau. This marked the entrance of 
child welfare exhibit material into the 
field of the general exposition and state 
fair. Demands from half a dozen such 
fairs came to the National Committee, 

The use of exhibit material on subjects 
concerning children has become so wide- 
spread that it is necessary to limit the 
term child welfare exhibit, and define 
rather exactly the type of exhibition to 
which it may rightly be applied. 

Large numbers of so-called “child wel- 
fare exhibits” have been held some of them 
semicommercial, some of them educational 
exhibits held in connection with Mothers’ 
Congress meetings, State conferences of 
charities, and similar organizations, and 
covering some aspect of child welfare. 
(See Mothers and Parent-Teacher Asso-| 
ciation, National Congress of.) 

The term “child welfare exhibit,” how-_ 
ever, really belongs to the exhibits which 
aim to bring together all forces in the 
community dealing with the welfare of 
the child, in the attempt to show: 


Local conditions affecting the children’ 
What is being done for the children — 
What is not being done for the children | 
What ought to be done for the children. | 


A child welfare exhibit of this sort 
differs from a specialized exhibit on hous-) 
ing or tuberculosis in that it requires the 
codperation of all the community’s forces. 
The securing of such codperation is as) 
much a part of the work of the exhibit as 
is the actual display. 

An exhibit of this kind has somewhat, 
the effect of a civic revival. It calls to- 
gether all of the social forces of a com-| 
munity; helps them to work out a plan 
for community action, and exhibits that) 
plan to citizens of all types and classes.: 
Mayors, laborers, prominent business men, 








i 
14 
om | 
» 


Child Welfare Exhibits 


city officials, high school students, for- 


eign mothers with babies in their arms, 


_ compose the thoroughly democratic crowds 
at the exhibit. 


The children themselves are perhaps 


as deeply impressed as the adults, al- 
though the message of the exhibit is pri- 
marily concerning children, rather than 


for children. Compositions by children 


suddenly called for in Louisville six 
months after the exhibit, showed that 
_ nearly every school child from the third 
grade through the high school, retained 
some definite impression of events or ob- 


jects in the child welfare exhibit. 


The 


good and bad grocery, with its lesson of 
cleanliness and order, was more remem- 
_bered than any other one thing. The 
effect of such standards, wide spread 


throughout a community, has more effect 
than any law. 
A boy of fourteen stood in the Provi- 


dence exhibit, watching the “Vicious Cir- 


cle” that displayed the unbroken sequence 


of 


Child Labor Low Wages 
Unskilled Labor Poverty 
Child Labor 


each following the other. He said: “That 


means, doesn’t it, that if I don’t learn 
_ things, I’m going to be poor and my chil- 


dren are going to be poor.” 
The effect upon individual visitors is 


| only a small part of the result of a child 


welfare exhibit. In every city new legis- 


lation of some kind has followed. In Chi- 
cago, a new bathing beach and an infant 
welfare division in the Board of Health. 
_In Kansas City a factory-inspection ordi- 


nance. In St. Louis and other cities the 
summary of needs, as worked out through 
the exhibit, was made the basis of the 
legislative program of the united Social 
Agencies. In Providence, where the ex- 
hibit was held at the beginning of the state 


legislature, nine bills were immediately 


ee 


introduced which related to hours of 
labor, newsboys, a juvenile code and court, 
the wider use of schools, the care of deaf, 
blind, and imbecile children, and several 
other problems. 

A child welfare exhibit leaves behind 


it some people who have received definite 
ideas on the subject of the community’s 
leeds, and many more who have become 





Impressed with the fact that child welfare 


221 


Child Welfare, Canada 


is an important subject worthy of a com- 
munity’s attention, and who are prepared 
to be favorably disposed towards any 
proposition brought forward in the name 
of the child welfare exhibit. It is the 
predisposition of this larger group which 
influences and supports all legislation. 

The immediate conscious purpose of the 
child welfare exhibit is, of course, not to 
legislate, nor to combine, nor to convert, 
but to exhibit, and by exhibiting to edu- 
cate. It is the answer to a great popular 
demand for easier and quicker ways of 
learning. A college education is not to 
be judged solely by the examinations 
passed or even by the results two years 
afterwards in earning capacity; neither 
is an exhibit to be judged solely by the 
immediate results in legislation, though 
there should be such results; but through 
subtle changes of attitude and conviction, 
of individual and community relations, 
the child welfare exhibit works out its 
true purpose of popular education. 

ANNA L. STRONG. 


CHILD WELFARE IN AUSTRALIA.— 
SEE AustTRALiA, 8. 8S. WORK IN. 


CHILD WELFARE IN CANADA.—In 
common with other civilized and Chris- 
tian countries throughout the world, Can- 
ada lays great stress on work for the better 
care and protection of neglected, depend- 
ent and delinquent children. In 1893, 
the Province of Ontario put into opera- 
tion a complete measure of protection for 
its youthful citizens and as this children’s 
protection act has since been adopted by 
the other Provinces, it might be summar- 
ized as follows: Each Province appoints 
a General Superintendent to supervise 
and direct this class of work. Children’s 
Aid Societies are organized in each city 
and county. They are made the guardians 
of neglected or friendless children under 
sixteen and their duty is to find foster 
homes for them as soon as possible. For 
temporary care of children, a Children’s 
Shelter is maintained in each large center 
of population. When a child is sent to 
a foster home, particulars are forwarded 
to the Provincial Superintendent who pro- 
vides for the personal visitation of each 
child so that overwork or ill-treatment 
may be guarded against. Citizens know- 
ing of children needing care are invited 


Child Welfare, Canada 


to report the facts at once. As a result 
of this codperation the abuse of children 
has been reduced to a minimum. 

Probably the most important and satis- 
factory feature of this general plan is the 
creation of a strong public sentiment that 
effectually safeguards children from wrong 
treatment. 

Although the general policy is to have 
all dependent children placed in family 
homes, there are boys’ and girls’ Homes 
and Orphanages maintained by private 
philanthropy for the boarding of children 
left fatherless and not eligible for adop- 
tion. 

The law provides for juvenile courts 
and the complete separation of youthful 
offenders from adults charged with crime. 
The Ontario Act of 1893, provided for 
the appointment of a special Commis- 
sioner to deal with young delinquents 
and this movement was taken up in Chi- 
cago in 1899, and made famous through- 
out the world. (See Juvenile Court.) 

There are in each Province Industrial 
Schools established along parental lines, 
for the training of delinquent children be- 
tween the ages of twelve and sixteen. 
Sentences are indeterminate, the average 
stay in the institution being eighteen 
months. 

Compulsory school attendance laws are 
in force in all the Provinces of Canada, 
except Quebec and Manitoba, the school 
age being from seven to fourteen. At a 
recent session of the Ontario Legislature 
an Act was passed empowering any mu- 
nicipality to require children to attend 
until sixteen unless they had passed a pre- 
scribed standard. 

There are also excellent child labor laws 
in most of the Provinces, prohibiting the 
employment of children under fourteen, 
with some exception for rural children 
during harvesting and the fruit picking 
season. The officials charged. with the en- 
forcement of this law in Ontario state that 
it is well observed and it is only occasion- 
ally that the law is broken by the decep- 
tion of parents as to the exact age of the 
child. Unfortunately the child labor laws 
do not take cognizance of news-boys, the 
municipalities having power to license 
boys over eight years of age to be on the 
streets in this calling. Now, however, an 
enlightened public opinion is demanding 
stricter regulations. 


R22 


Child Welfare, United States 


Within recent years great progress has 
been made by the movement to provide 
medical and dental inspection for all chil- 
dren. In Toronto there are medical and 
dental directors and a force of nurses ap- 
pointed to carry on the inspection. Much 
good work has resulted and other cities 
are following this example. The Health 
Department of Toronto, The Hospital for 
Sick Children, The General Hospital, and 
also the Tuberculosis Sanitarium Asso- 
ciation maintain nurses to visit and assist 
in the homes of the poor and this is a new 
and growing branch of social welfare work. 
Other cities also, throughout Canada do 
more or less of this work. 

Special classes have been opened in the 
public schools for backward children, and 
during the summer of 1912, Toronto made 
a start in open air classes for weak and 
delicate children. 

There is an agitation going on for the 
more complete custodial care of the feeble- 
minded, the accommodation for this class 
throughout Canada being altogether in- 
adequate. The Ontario Government re- 
cently made an offer that if the munici- 
palities would care for and maintain 
feeble minded children under twenty-one, 
the Government would assume the care 
and expense thereafter. 

Infant mortality has attracted wide- 
spread attention in the past two years. 
Montreal was so impressed with its ab- 
normal death rate among infants that a 
child welfare exhibit costing over thirty 
thousand dollars was prepared in that city 
during October, 1912, and was attended 
daily by great ‘crowds, with good educa- 
tional results. (See Child Welfare Hx- 
hibits. ) 

In all directions the welfare of children 
is receiving greater attention than ever 
before and this augurs well for the health 
and happiness of future generations in 
Canada. (See Child Welfare in the U. S.; 
Child Welfare Movement. ) 

J.J. KExso. 


CHILD WELFARE IN THE UNITED 
STATES.—Social reform in order to be 
successful must begin with the child. 
The man or woman in whom the germs 
of physical or moral disease have taken 
root presents an infinitely more difficult 
problem than does the child with un- 
formed habits and with the ability to 





: 
| 
: 


pt 


Child Welfare, United States 


adapt himself to a changed environment. 
The recognition of this fact has led to 
an awakening of the public conscience in 
regard to child welfare. Hundreds of 
child-welfare societies have been formed 
for the purpose of studying the needs of 
children as well as of devising means to 


meet these needs, and state laws for the 


' 


protection and care of children have been 


enacted. Perhaps the most significant 
governmental action was the formation, 
in 1912, of the Federal Children’s Bureau. 


(See Children’s Bureau.) 

Child-welfare work is conducted along 
three main lines; viz., investigation, re- 
pressive and constructive work, and its 


broad scope includes every phase of child 


life and every stage of its development. 


The first right which should be granted 


; 


to all children who are brought into the 


_ world is the right to be well-born. Efforts 
are made, therefore, to prevent reproduc- 
tion among the unfit, such as idiots, im- 


beciles, instinctive criminals, and those 


afflicted with certain kinds of disease, so 
_that there will be no children doomed 
before their birth. This is exceedingly 
important since the birth rate among the 


_ feeble-minded 


is much greater than 
among the normal population. Much 
valuable data on this subject have been pre- 


_pared by Dr. Davenport, Director of the 
Department of Experimental Evolution 


| Eye 


of the Carnegie Institution at Washing- 
ton, D. C., and his co-laborers at the Eu- 
genics Record office, Cold Springs Harbor, 
(See Eugenics.) 

Efforts to Reduce Infant Mortality. 


To the helpless babe should be accorded 


the right to proper food and care. 
_cause of the ignorance and poverty of 


Be- 


Many parents infant mortality has been 
_ great, especially in the large cities during 


the summer months. 


To cope with this 


situation the instruction of mothers has 


been undertaken. 


It was begun in New 


York city in 1908, and a year later in 


Boston. 


Attempts have also been made 


to introduce this work in Chicago, St. 
Louis, Baltimore, and Milwaukee, while 


| 
| 


assistance is also being given through the 
publications of the Federal Children’s 


Bureau. A second effort to reduce infant 
Mortality has resulted in the establish- 
ment of the milk depot, where good, pas- 
_teurized milk is sold to the poor, usually 


at less than cost. 


At the depot the milk 


223 


Child Welfare, United States 


is modified to suit the age of the child, or 
the mother is instructed how to modify 
it. In connection with the milk depot is 
usually a babies’ clinic, in charge of a 
physician or trained nurse. 

Playgrounds. A new appreciation of 
the value of play and of the need for play- 
grounds for small children has led many 
cities, social settlements, and philanthropic 
societies to establish such playgrounds. 
The work of the National Playground 
Association has given great impetus to 
this movement. It publishes a magazine 
and also distributes pamphlet literature. 
(See Playground and Recreation Associa- 
tion of America.) Permission to use 
vacant lots has been secured in some 
cities, while in congested districts there 
have been established play zones, where 
for certain hours during the day the 
streets are closed to traffic in order that 
the children may use them for play. The 
civic center, first established in Chicago, 
in 1903, provides a great variety of recrea- 
tion for adults as well as children. A 
movement favoring a wider use of the 
public-school playgrounds during the day, 
and of the school buildings as evening 
centers, is rapidly gaining ground in the 
United States. 

Child Labor. Simultaneously with the 
better understanding of the child’s need 
for play has come the recognition that 
the years of growth must be safeguarded 
by precautionary measures which will 
insure freedom from toil. Since 1895 
some laws relating to child labor have 
been passed in all the states. Perhaps the 
most effective of these have been the com- 
pulsory education laws, requiring children 
to remain in school until the age of four- 
teen. Local committees, working in con- 
nection with the National Child Labor 
Committee (qg. v.), are carrying forward 
this reform by calling the attention of 
parents to the permanent interests of 
their children; by educating the public 
through lectures and through the pub- 
lications of the Committee, and by cease- 
less efforts for better child-labor legisla- 
tion. 

Vocational Guidance. Large numbers 
of children leave school immediately upon 
attaining the age up to which they are re- 
quired to remain in school—some not 
even waiting until the close of the term. 
Book learning has failed to hold their 


Child Welfare, United States 224 Child Welfare, United States 


interest, and the need is apparent for in- 
dustrial training for this class of children 
who are to become manual laborers. Since 
this much needed educational reform has 
not yet been brought about, a few cities 
are endeavoring to guide the youth who 
have left school and, without knowing 
what to do, wish to enter the industrial 
world. Boston has a Vocational Bureau 
which gives to parents and children in- 
formation in regard to different occupa- 
tions, the opportunities they offer for 
advancement, the compensation, the 
handicaps, etc. A number of cities, as 
Boston, Cincinnati, and St Louis, have 
continuation schools, in which young 
people regularly employed have an op- 
portunity to supplement shopwork with 
regular courses of instruction. Wiscon- 
sin enacted in 1911 a law requiring chil- 
dren under sixteen who have not com- 
pleted the elementary school course to 
attend a continuation school. (See Ex- 
Scholars Employment Committee; Voca- 
tional Instruction.) 

Juvenile Courts. In country districts 
of the United States there are very few 
delinquent children. But in the cities, 
especially in thickly populated sections, 
where little real freedom is permitted and 
where temptation is rife, the juvenile de- 
linguent is a serious problem. To deal 
with these young offenders the juvenile 
court (q. v.) has been established in most 
of our large cities, while some states, e. g., 
Indiana, have provision for forming such 
courts in any county so desiring. In the 
states of New York and Oklahoma the 
laws provide that delinquents under six- 
teen shall in all cases be tried in the civil 
courts. The probation system, with its 
trained probation officers who make in- 
vestigations and represent in court the 
interest of the child, has been established 
in thirty-eight states. 

Measures for Child Protection. Most 
eases of delinquency in children can be 
traced to neglect on the part of parents. 
Contributory delinquency laws have there- 
fore been enacted in about one-half the 
states. These laws provide that a parent 
or guardian of a child who encourages, 
aids, or in any way contributes to the de- 
linquency of such child is guilty of a mis- 
demeanor and subject to a fine or im- 
prisonment, or both. 

The Juvenile Protective Association of 


Chicago, formerly the Juvenile Court 
Committee, resulted from the [Illinois 
Juvenile Court Law, which went into | 
effect July 1, 1899. The present name | 
was assumed in 1909, when the Associa- | 
tion took over the work of the J uvenile | 
Protective Leagues which had been formed | 
already. The purpose of the work is to| 
use preventive rather than reformative 
measures. The Association works through | 
a series of local protective leagues by 
means of which it hopes to correlate the 
existing social and educational forces, to 
create others, and to extend their use. 
among the young people. The Associa- 
tion is supported by voluntary contribu- 
tions. | 

Many societies contribute in various 
ways to the protection of children through 
the punishment of offenders. Among 
these are the Humane Society, the So- 
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
Children, and the Society for the Sup- 
pression ‘of Vice. The most important 
work of the last of these, of which An- 
thony Comstock is secretary, is the pre- 
vention of the use of the mails in the in- 
terest of vice. Organizations, such as the 
American Federation for Sex Hygiene, 
have been formed to aid in protecting 
adolescent boys and girls from the conse- 
quences of ignorance along the lines of 
sex physiology. Instruction is being 
given in many schools, and parents are 
being urged to recognize their responsi- 
bility. | 

Of the constructive efforts for child 
protection none is more valuable than 
those of the neighborhood centers, settle- 
ments, and institutional churches, which 
provide boys and girls with an opportu-’ 
nity for wholesome exercise, entertain- 
ments, and social intercourse. ‘These in- 
stitutions have led men and women who 
are more favorably situated, to interest 
themselves in boys and girls who are 
handicapped because of their environ-. 
ment, and the Big Brother (q. v.) and 
Big Sister (q. v.) movements are among 
the many results achieved. 

The Care of Dependent Children. 
Normal dependent children in the United 
States are cared for chiefly through pri- 
vate agencies. ‘The most important of 
these is the Children’s Home Society, an 
organization which exists in thirty-one 
different states and is federated into a 


Child Welfare, Great Britain 


national body. The purpose of the or- 

ganization is to find suitable homes for 
homeless children. In addition to the 
Home Societies, many of the larger cities 
have. Children’s Aid Societies, which differ 
only slightly from the Home Societies, 
except that they usually maintain chil- 
dren in temporary family homes while a 
permanent home is being found. 

As a rule, churches care for their home- 
less children in orphanages, but a few 
follow the lines of the home-finding so- 
cieties. In some states public subsi- 
dies are granted to private charitable 
organizations that care for dependent 
children ; in others the work of child say- 
ing is done through the state school 
system, in which children are maintained 
in an institution and attend school until 
they can be placed in permanent foster 
homes. In other states the County Home 
system has been adopted. It is now gen- 
erally recognized that it is undesirable to 
have children remain long in institutions, 
and that home life is fundamental to 
American civilization. A few states are 
‘granting pensions to widowed mothers in 
order that the family life may be pre- 
served. (See Child Welfare Exhibits; 

Child Welfare in Canada; Child Welfare 


| Movement. ) Minna M. MEYER. 


_ CHILD WELFARE MOVEMENT 
(GREAT BRITAIN).—The New Appre- 
_ ciation of Childhood. The present time is 
often characterized as “the century of the 
child.” The history of the past is epitom- 
ized in the life of each child. The child 
holds the key to the future. Froebel 
taught that “the duty of each generation is 
_to gather up its inheritance from the past, 
and thus to serve the present and prepare 
better things for the future.” There is 
‘lO surer, saner and more scientific way to 
secure human betterment than by a con- 
centration of effort upon the welfare of 
the child. The child welfare movement 
is the manifestation of a divine purpose, 
the unfolding of a God-directed truth, the 
evidence that the day has dawned when 
/ of the nations of the earth and particularly 
of the great English-speaking peoples it 
can be said “A little child shall lead 
them.” “Child study marks the introduc- 
tion of evolutionary thought into the field 
of the human soul,” says Dr. G. Stanley 
‘Hall; and by the investigation of human 





220 


Child Welfare, Great Britain 


development in infancy and childhood and 
through youth to the early period of man- 
hood and womanhood we may obtain an- 
swers to many of the most perplexing and 
serious of life’s riddles. In seeking to 
solve pressing problems by the organiza- 
tion of a wise and powerful collectivism we 
are being driven to a more thorough and 
thoughtful study of the individual. And 
a scientific consideration of and service 
for individuals must have its origin in the 
complete understanding of child life. 

The child is the coming citizen. There 
is no nobler work than that of training 
and safeguarding the children. Child 
welfare work calls for serious and persist- 
ent study and demands the best powers of 
thought and action. Many and varied are 
its branches. It is essential that before 
undertaking any particular branch of this 
work a general study of child life should 
be pursued. This is necessary if a wide 
outlook is to be maintained, and a firm 
grasp of general principles secured which 
shall guide in the conduct of a scientific- 
ally directed service. 

There is now no lack of opportunity for 
effective child study. Colleges, schools, 
study circles, and training centers offer a 
rich variety of courses of instruction for 
the serious student. The teacher with 
limited time needs guidance and counsel 
in individual study, rather than a com- 
plete program of studies such as the sys- 
tematic student may require. In regard 
to the methods of child welfare work prac- 
tical workers on both sides of the Atlantic 
may with advantage learn much from a 
consideration of each other’s attitude and 
experience. 

I. Principles and Practice of Child Wel- 
fare. As Prof. James Sully has well ex- 
pressed, “The general tendency of modern 
thought is to regard childhood not merely 
as a period of preparation for the glorious 
estate of manhood, but as having an in- 
trinsic value and rights of its own.” 
Many hold that the state would be wise 
to appoint a Minister and maintain a De- 
partment of Child Welfare. There is no 
part of the community requiring national 
protection, control and safeguarding to a 
greater extent than do children. At pres- 
ent child welfare is dealt with in a meas- 
ure by several departments of the state. 
There is a pressing need for codrdination 
of work, cooperation of workers, and closer 


Child Welfare, Great Britain 


adjustment between voluntary and na- 
tional efforts. Bureaus of information, 
regarding child welfare, have been estab- 
lished by the British Institute of Social 
Service, 4 Tavistock square, London, W.C., 
the Children’s Aid Society, Victoria 
House, 117 Victoria street, London, 8.W., 
and the National Society for the Preven- 
tion of Cruelty to Children (q. v.), 40 
Leicester square, London, W.C. A cen- 
tral clearing house or bureau of child wel- 
fare for London has been organized under 
the general direction of the Social Welfare 
Association of London, 845-850 Salisbury 
House, Finsbury Circus, London, H.C. 
Recently a special division of the Home 
Office has been. established to deal with 
questions relating to children, particularly 
reformatory and industrial schools, chil- 
dren’s courts, probation officers, cruelty to 
children, and street trading. 

Attempts have been made to provide 
directories to the more important societies 
and institutions dealing with children and 
child interests. (See directory pages in 
each month’s issue of The Child; Bur- 
dett’s Hospitals and Charities; see also 
The Annual Charities Register and Digest. 
Those interested in the school life of the 
country will find full particulars of lead- 
ing educational institutions in The Public 
Schools Year Book, The Schoolmaster’s 
Year Book and Directory, The Guwul’s 
School Year Book, and The Directory of 
Women Teachers.) 

Students of child welfare now possess an 
extensive periodical and general literature. 
Among magazines likely to prove of spe- 
cial service the following may be men- 
tioned: The Child, The Child’s Guardian, 
the organ of the National Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Children; Child 
Study, the journal of the Child Study 
Society; The Parents Review, the organ 
of the Parents’ National Educational 
Union. The Pedagogical Seminary, pub- 
lished quarterly in the United States of 
America is of special service to all English 
speaking peoples. 

Excellent works are now available for 
students of the various aspects of child 
welfare. (For useful bibliographies see 
vols. 1-4 of National Health Manuals— 
Infancy, Childhood, School Infe and 
Youth.) 

In many places study circles are being 
established for the systematic considera- 


226 


q 
Child Welfare, Great Britain — 


tion and discussion of problems of child 
life and welfare. 

Various forms of child welfare exhibi- 
tions offer a valuable means whereby the 
public may be interested and educated. 
(See Child Welfare Exhibits. ) 

Thoughtful minds are awakening to the 
importance of recognizing that child wel- 
fare is closely associated with the direction, 
care and conduct of parenthood. Eugenic 
ideals are arousing many to a fresh con- 
sideration of the duties and responsibili- 
ties of procreation and parentage. Society 
is admitting the right of the child to be 
well born. Eugenics (g. v.) has been de- 
fined as “the study of agencies under so- 
cial control that may improve or impair 
the racial qualities of future generations, 
either physically or mentally,” and is a 
subject which no worker for child welfare 
can afford to neglect. (See the Hugenics 
Review issued quarterly, and Problems in 
Eugenics, being the Report of the Proceed- 
ings of the First International Eugenics 
Congress. ) 

II. The Legal Protection of Infancy 
and Childhood. The strong hand of the 
law is constantly required to safeguard the 
interests of the young. The Children 
Act, 1908, well designated the Magna 
Charta of childhood, has codified the best 
in previous statutes dealing with the pro- | 
tection of child life. Every worker among 
the young should be cognizant of the pow= 
ers available under this Act. (See Chil- | 
dren and the Law, by H. W. Stuart. 
Garnett. Consult also The Elements of 
Child Protection, by Dr. Sigmund Engel, 
translated by Dr. Eden Paul.) | 

The development of the public con- 
science is clearly manifest in the addition | 
to the English statute book of such Acts | 
as the following: Criminal Amendment 
Act, 1885; Employment of Children Act, | 
1903; Prevention of Cruelty to Children 
Act, 1904; Probation of Offenders Act, 
1907; Notification of Births Act, 1907; | 
Prevention of Crime Act, 1908. a 

Through statutory powers, local govern- 
ment, voluntary effort, philanthropic en- 
deavor, educational enlightenment, and an 
appeal to heart and conscience, increasing 
knowledge and growing wisdom are being 
rendered available for the safeguarding of 
the nation’s most valuable assets—the 
bodies and souls of its future citizens. 

III. The Health of the Child. The 
| 
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Child Welfare, Great Britain 


modern child welfare movement has been 
most manifest in regard to matters relat- 
ing to the health of children. Sympathy 
and charity have long been extended to the 
sick and crippled child; hospitals have 
been established for suffering children; 
homes and asylums have been founded for 
the defective and the dependent, and 
schools and training centers have been set 
up for delinquents. Now, however, science 
is urging that prevention is saner and 
safer, cheaper and more desirable, than 
even the best of reformative measures. To 
rescue and to save is good, but to shield 
and develop in all righteousness is better. 
And there is urgent need for an extension 
of preventive powers. 

Modern work for the preservation of the 
health of the nation’s children may be said 
to date from the beginning of medical in- 
spection in the elementary schools. (See 
Medical Examination of Schools and 
Scholars.) Doctors and teachers and 
every one concerned for the betterment of 
child life should study the Reports of Sir 
George Newman, M.D., the chief medical 
officer of the Board of Education; and Dr. 
Leslie Mackenzie’s First Report on the 
Medical Inspection of School Children in 
Scotland.) 

Much of the defect and the disease dis- 
covered at school has its origin in the pov- 
erty, neglect and ignorance of the par- 
ents, the unsanitary conditions of the 
home, the lack of a hygienic environment, 
and the absence of means for the preven- 
tion of disease and disorder, and the early 
‘Tecognition, and prompt and thorough 
treatment of all morbid conditions threat- 
ening child welfare. 

Most of the disease met with in school 
children is home born and home grown. 
As Mr. J. A. Pease, the president of the 
Board of Education, has recently shown 
a serious amount of illness and trouble is 
discovered among children at the time of 
their entrance to public schools: ten 
‘per cent have impaired eyesight; five 
‘per cent have defects of hearing; five per 
cent suffer from adenoids; fifty per cent 
have serious decay of the teeth; tubercu- 
losis exists in two per cent; heart disease 
in two per cent, and malnutrition is pres- 
ent in ten per cent. Those who came to 
‘school in a verminous condition in 1908 
Were more than forty-three per cent. 
Efforts are now being made to cope with 


| 
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: 


R27 


to this malady. 


Child Welfare, Great Britain 


this deplorable condition of affairs. 
Treatment centers are being established, 
dental clinics are at work, open air schools 
are maintained, sanatoria for children are 
provided, and special training for a large 
number of children who are physically and 
mentally defective; meals are supplied to 
the underfed, the school nurse is follow- 
ing up cases, the visiting housekeeper is 
gaining entry into the homes, after-care 
committees are at work, and the elements 
of mother craft, home-making, civics and 
the like are being taught. 

Special interest is being taken in tuber- 
culous children, and in those predisposed 
(See Tuberculosis in In- 
fancy and Childhood, and consult The 
Year Book of Open-Air Schools and Chil- 
dren’s Sanatoria. Under the National 
Health Insurance Act, 1910, tuberculous 
dependents can be dealt with, and it is to 
be hoped that before long all tuberculous 
children and youth will have adequate 
care, 

Much is being done for the protection 
of infant life. Mothers are being assisted 
by reliable and . well-trained midwives; 
skilled visitors often render much needed 
advice and practical service; in many 
places expectant mothers are provided with 
suitable meals, the occurrence of infectious 
and other disorders is more definitely dealt 
with, and there is a growing demand for 
a scientifically guaranteed control of the 
milk supply. All these methods are of 
the utmost importance in the safeguarding 
of life at its beginning. 

IV. The Provision of Recreation. A 
healthy child should be a playful child. 
No welfare movement can be complete 
that neglects the organization and conduct 
for measures of recreation. Provision for 
play is being recognized not only as a law- 
ful recreative need, but as essential for 
hygienic, mental and moral training. The 
play instincts and necessities of child life 
must be considered in all the activities of 
the early years of development. Much of 
the play of childhood is as serious, respon- 
sible, mind strengthening, soul stirring as 
the most arduous of work in later years. 
Play may prove as powerful a factor in the 
development of the highest and best char- 
acter as any form of educational work. 
But it must be studied, systematized, regu- 
lated and wisely organized, or it will suffer 
a degradation which may result in the de- 


Child Welfare, Great Britain 


terioration of character, and a dissipation 
of the finest forces which determine con- 
duct. ‘There are now numerous move- 
ments in the interest of various aspects of 
play and recreative activities. Play is 
being recognized as an essential part of 
every well-regulated curriculum. In 
schools and colleges for all classes play- 
grounds are provided and much care and 
expense are devoted to the perfecting of 
facilities for games and sport. (See Play 
as a Factor in Religious Education.) 

In towns and cities municipal parks, 
playgrounds, swimming baths, gymnasia 
and the like are provided, and in many 
instances skilled instructors are available. 
During the summer camps are established 
for children of all classes. Country holi- 
days bring the delights of nature to many 
city children. School excursions, jour- 
neys, and even school tours to other lands, 
are now recognized as legitimate means 
where play and study may be blended, 
since both are essential to a complete edu- 
cation. Perhaps the most beneficent re- 
sults have accrued from the organization 
for boys and girls into such movements as 
the Boy Scouts (q. v.), the Girl Guides, 
and Boys’ and Girls’ Life Brigades—all 
of which develop powers needed for team 
work, and tend towards the recognition of 
the call of duty, the regulation of conduct, 
and dedication to the service of God and 
man, home and country. 

It cannot be denied, however, that there 
are difficulties and dangers connected with 
the freer life and closer associations 
brought about by some of the enterprises 
springing up about the recreative life of 
childhood and youth. These must be faced 
with courage and wisdom. Folk dances 
need to be carefully supervised, dramatic 
performances undertaken by children must 
be lifted to a plane of purity and beauty, 
dancing saloons must be vigorously super- 
intended, picture palaces and _ similar 
theaters for children and youth should be 
subjected to a judicious censorship, and 
vulgar, inartistic and degrading displays 
and performances of all kinds which tend 
to undermine moral, religious and intel- 
lectual powers should be excluded from 
church, school and institutional centers. 
Finally, it may be urged that home recrea- 
tions and play activities require a more 
thorough study and a wiser care than they 
usually receive at the present day. 


228 


we ae ial 


Child Welfare, Great Britain 


V. Dependents, Defectives and Delin- 
quents. No two children are alike. A 
perfectly normal child is rare. Most chil- 
dren are exceptional in some particular. 
Occasionally a genius is born, though 
fortunately, the supernormal child is sel- 
dom found. Abnormal, subnormal chil- 
dren abound. The causes for defectiveness 
are many and varied, and some are little 
understood and are unpreventable. It is 
becoming increasingly clear, however, that 
many dependents and delinquents are such 
because they are defectives in mind or 
body. Society is realizing that it has to 
deal with a vicious circle. Defectives are 
likely to beget defectives, and the multipli- 
cation of defectives increases the perplex- 
ities of the problems of dependency and 
delinquency. We are beginning to realize 
that individual care and training must be 
provided for every child. Society cannot 
deal with its youth in great class groups. 
Special consideration must be given to the 
limitations, eccentricities, frailties, dis- 
eases and disqualifications of each young 
life, if the maximum of happiness and use- 
fulness is to be attained, with the min- 
imum of sin, sorrow and suffering. Spe- 
cial schools are necessary for cripples, 
blind, deaf, tuberculous and delicate chil- 
dren. The backward, mentally deficient 
and morally unstable must be trained, pro- 
tected, cared for, controlled and, if need 
be, in their own interest, as well as for the 
ae of the State, safeguarded throughout | 
ife. 

Juvenile delinquents are too often the | 
victims of their own imperfections and | 
ignorance, and the mismanagement of | 
those who should have accepted the duties | 
of guardianship. The State is now realiz- | 
ing its responsibilities in regard to irre- 
sponsible lawbreakers, and by the estab- 
lishment of juvenile courts, probationary 
systems and reformatory schools, is en- 
deavoring to provide some sensible and | 
scientific machinery for dealing with such 
eases. (See Big Brother Movement; | 
Juvenile Court.) | 

VI. Child Labor. In Great Britain, and. 
in all civilized lands, thoughtful minds 
are awakening to the wickedness of sacri-| 
ficing children at the shrine of mammon. | 
Most of the problems which at present) 
seem insoluble are so only because men are 
satisfied with a meager education for chil-| 
dren, and are willing to have immature 











for the sake of industrial schemes. 


Childhood 


mental and physical powers brought under 
the crushing machinery of cheap child 
labor. Some parents are willing to sacri- 
fice all future days for the sake of a few 
shillings of profit in the present. Much 
of the disappointment over the educational 
system arises from a selfish clinging to a 
belief in child labor. Time, talents and 
money are lavished upon the young child, 
but imperfect provision is made for voca- 
tional training and discipline for citizen- 
ship during the impressionable and all- 
important period of adolescence. In many 
Sunday schools great care is taken to de- 
velop the Primary Department, while 
oftentimes little is done to successfully 
influence aright youth in the days of the 


soul’s awakening to life’s great purposes. 


(See Ex-Scholars Employment Commit- 


_tee; Vocational Instruction.) 


Society must cease to exploit the child 
Dur- 


ing the developmental period he must be 


given a fitting environment for the estab- 
lishment of a healthy physical frame; for 
trained, well-balanced intellectual powers ; 
and for an insight and acceptance of the 
new spiritual forces which flood the soul 
at adolescence. (See Adolescence and its 
Significance. ) 
T. N. Ketynack, M.D. 


CHILDHOOD.—Srr ADOLESCENCE AND 
ITs SIGNIFICANCE; 
CRUELTY TO CHILDREN; KINDERGARTEN, 
S. S.; PsycHoLogy anp Prepacocy, Con- 
TRIBUTIONS OF, TO THE WORK OF THE S8. 
S.; PsycnHo.togy, Cuinp; Reticion, THE 
CHILD’s, AND ITS CULTURE. 


CHILDREN AND CHURCH MEMBER- 
SHIP.—The notable advance during re- 
cent years in the adaptation of religious 
truth to childhood has not yet lifted into 
sufficient prominence the question of 
church membership for children. It has 
often been taken for granted in Protestant 
churches that, unless quite exceptional any 
one younger than fourteen years of age is 
unsuitable for membership. Above this 
age, there is more encouragement than 
formerly to come to communion. Compar- 
atively few encourage the child-commu- 
nicant. One’s preference as between the 
institutional, historic view of Christianity 


and the individual, experimental view, 


necessarily affects one’s attitude toward 


229 


CHILD WELFARE;: 


Children and Church Membership 


this question. ‘hose denominations which 
emphasize a definite connection with the 
church as essential to salvation, and also 
find an inherent value in the sacrament, 
naturally are disposed to admit children 
to communion much earlier than those 
which demand individual acceptance of 
Christ as Savior and require some meas- 
ure of spirit experience in their mem- 
bers. (In canon law childhood begins at 
seven and ends at twelve for a girl, at 
fourteen for a boy.) 

In the Greek church, and in the Roman 
Catholic Church in Spain, infants are con- 
firmed immediately after baptism. The 
Catechism of the Council of Trent says 
that the sacrament of confirmation can 
be administered to all persons after bap- 
tism, but that this is not expedient before 
the use of reason, and adds that it is most 
fitting that the sacrament be deferred 
until the child is seven years of age. The 
late Pope (Pius X) recently advised this 
as the suitable age in France. 

In the Church of England, the age has 
varied according to the view of the doc- 
trine lying behind the rite. A Synod of 
Exeter, 1287, ordered children to be con- 
firmed before they were three years of age. 
At the Reformation while the English 
church set itself against the custom of con- 
firming infants, yet it required that chil- 
dren should be brought to confirmation as 
soon as they could say the Creed from 
memory, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten 
Commandments, and also could answer to 
such questions in- the Catechism as the 
Bishop should ask them (v. Rubrics in 
Prayer books of 1549 and 1552). In prac- 
tice the minimum age limit for confirma- 
tion was gradually raised. Queen Eliz- 
abeth’s injunctions of 1559 forbid chil- 
dren to communicate “before the age of 
twelve or thirteen years,” and requires 
that they shall be “of good discretion and 
well instructed beforehand.” Some of the 
nonjurors restored the confirmation and 
communion of infants. 

In the churches which demand some ex- 
periential religion, however rudimentary, 
the age for church membership inevitably 
tends to the Elizabethan standard of min- 
imum age cited above. It is a grave ques- 
tion, however, whether this tradition is 
justified. Well authenticated instances 
abound where children of seven or eight 
years of age have had a definite religious 


Children and Church Membership 


experience which is not in any sense pre- 
cocious or abnormal. Adult candidates 
for membership not infrequently remem- 
ber the initial moment of their religious 
experience at the age of eight or ten years. 
Also, a large number are quite unable to 
remember a time when they did not love 
Christ. 

Child-conversion both with and without 
special efforts to secure it, may be taken 
as an accepted fact. Whether such child- 
Christians should be invited, welcomed or 
admitted to communion is the question 
at issue. Children under Christian influ- 
ences who show no signs of having awak- 
ened to spiritual consciousness are not 
under consideration. The Evangelical 
churches do not admit them to member- 
ship. The child-Christian must be dis- 
tinguished from the Christian child. The 
following topics deserve consideration: 
(1) Membership without communion 
(probationer-membership); (2) Com- 
munion without membership. (3) Pre- 
paration for and admission into the ordi- 
nary membership of the church. (See 
Child’s Communion.) 

1. Membership without Communion. 
The Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1878 
adopted a plan of Junior Society classes 
“to prepare young persons by Christian in- 
struction, and the maturing of spiritual 
sensibility, for admission to full church 
membership.” Those classes are chiefly 
recruited from children who on Children’s 
Sunday make a decision for Christ, some- 
times at the age of ten, or even younger. 
In England, Scotland, and Wales nearly 
100,000 children belong to 5,500 classes. 
Here, as to some extent in Junior En- 
deavor societies, there is an attempt to 
form a probationer membership of child- 
Christians with a view to admission to the 
Lord’s Table. A limited number come to 
communion very early, the probation be- 
ing invariably a year at least. The major- 
ity become full members about the age of 
sixteen, though there is considerable leak- 
age at this point. To the writer’s knowl- 
edge no other church of any size has 
adopted this system. One may venture a 
word of caution against two possible weak- 
nesses: (a) Too little care and too little 
definiteness in admission to these junior 
society classes; (b) Lack of systematic 
preparation with a definite view to com- 
munion. 


230 


Children and Church Membership 


2. Communion without Membership. 
A children’s communion service is aN un- 
tried experiment. But there is nothing in 
the New Testament to forbid it. The 
simple symbolism would appeal very di- 
rectly to the child mind. If the whole 
service were carefully suited to the com- 
prehension of children, child-Christians 
would be greatly strengthened and solemn- 
ized by it. Besides, it is the logical out- 
come of the children’s service, if there is 
any spiritual harvest. The danger of put- 
ting children in a false position and of 
provoking self-consciousness by associating 
them in what has become practically an 
adult rite, with adult responsibilities, 
would be avoided. 

3. Preparation and admission to Full 
Church Membership. We require in mem- 
bers of the church a confession of alle- 
giance to Christ, adequate knowledge of 
the essentials of Christianity, and some 
guarantee of consistent behavior. But it 
is generally recognized that the first is the 
essential condition. It does not appear 
that any intelligent child of ten years of 
age, or even younger, need be deficient in 
any of these particulars if there has been 
provided a careful course of preparation 
and -adequate instruction in doctrine and 
morals such as some churches are accus- 
tomed to give before confirmation. A 
class for two or three months for children 
who show signs of spiritual sensitiveness 
would be of great value, and would act as 
a selective agency distinguishing those 
who are really ready for the Lord’s Table. 
There should be a simple service of dedi- 
cation in which the child candidates would 
be asked one or two questions in regard 
to their personal faith, and their devotion 
to Christ and to His church. The right 
hand of fellowship could then be given, 
and a few words of counsel spoken. 

Such a service, simple as it is, would 
probably bar out all who were not in- 
wardly the true lovers of Christ. Any 
intimation of precocity sometimes unhap- 


pily suggested by child communicants 


would then vanish with numbers sufficient 
to remove the appearance of singularity. 


The names of members ready for such 
periodical classes and services would be 


suggested by parents and Sunday-school 
teachers. The class should always be taken 


| 


by the pastor himself, or by a substitute | 


carefully chosen by him. Frequent morn-— 


| 


Children, Falsehoods of 


ing observances of the Lord’s Supper 
would be a necessity. Annual classes for 
such child members would be highly ad- 
visable. They are quite as necessary for 
young persons who have become communi- 
cants as for older ones, but are very rarely 


held. R. C. Grure. 


CHILDREN, FALSEHOODS OF.—To 
judge the young child by adult moral 
standards is to confess ignorance of 
child nature. The child is inexperienced 
and unadjusted, and he has as yet no 
standards from which to judge as to what 
is truth and what is falsehood. The world 
at first impresses the young child as a mass 
of marvels and miracles. He makes no 
distinctions; he accepts everything that 
is told him: why should there be any hmit 
to marvels? Children at first tell what 
may be untrue as naturally as they talk, 
and that in spite of the fact that instinct 
prompts to truth when the truth is once 
perceived. 

The apparent falsehoods of children 
arise largely because of the limitations of 
their imagination. The child has to make 
his judgments from very small experience. 
He declares that he has seen a bear or a 
snake when the strict truth of the matter 
is that he has seen something that through 
his lack of knowledge, and his active 
fancy, has been distorted into a bear or 
-asnake. The boy on the broomstick says 
that he is riding a horse, but we know that 
-heis not. The little girl declares that she 
is drinking tea out of the empty cup, but 
she is not saying it with intent to de- 
ceive. This myth-making tendency must 
be understood by those who discipline 
children. The child lives in a double 
world and the boundaries between the real 
and the fanciful are not sharply defined. 
_ (See Imagination, The Child’s Power of.) 

Another type of falsehood arises from 
the tendency to exaggerate, and its cause 
is the child’s innate love of creating an 
impression. A boy tells his wondering 
companions that he was looking at a tele- 
graph wire and suddenly all the birds sit- 
_ ting on it fell dead, for a message went 
by on the wire. This propensity can be 
easily regulated by wise management on 
the part of the parents and_ teachers. 
False statements may be due to faulty 
observation. Experience has given no ac- 
curate standards of measurement. Or 


231 


Children, Ignorance of 


they may be the result of the child’s love 
for having a secret. 

Finally, there is the deliberate lie told 
with intent to deceive. If the child has 
had the proper environment and training 
this lie will not be common. No other 
habit, however, will grow more rapidly, 
when once it has gained headway. The 
child has resorted to it to escape a tem- 
porary inconvenience and has been suc- 
cessful, and as a result he has learned a 
lesson of fearful significance. If un- 
checked, he will go on and on until he has 
become a confirmed liar, Over no tendency 
in the child’s nature should parent and 
teacher exercise more care, yet so little is 
this fact understood that very often the 
whole atmosphere about the young life is 
tainted with untruth. Parents play upon 
the credulity of children to enjoy their 
wonder ; they tell open lies to check their 
curiosity; and they threaten or promise 
things they never intend to do. Thus 
they are actually educating their children 
in untruth. 

There is no doubt that the child reared 
in a circle where truth is habitual, and 
where he is checked firmly in all his early 
attempts at deceit, and educated carefully 
with stories that illustrate the awfulness 
of falsehood, will become habitually truth- 
ful almost as a matter of course, so as 
indeed really to be shocked by the presence 
of deliberate untruth. pf 7, Pagrar 


CHILDREN, IGNORANCE OF.—Most 
of the inferior teaching in the elementary 
grades and many of the mistakes of par- 
ents arise from ignorance of child nature 
and child needs. Many methods highly 
successful in the adult school fail when 
applied to an elementary class of Junior 
boys. Children are not adults of lesser 
growth—they are not little men and little 
women. They are as different from adults 
as if they belonged to another species. 
Furthermore, they are in a constant state 
of change. The teacher may understand 
perfectly her class of Primary boys and 
yet fail with a class of adolescents. In- 
stincts develop suddenly at certain ages, 
run strongly for a time, and then die 
down before other emerging and stronger 
instincts. In regard to the differences 
between children and adults Prof. Naomi 
Norsworthy says: “The difference between 
children and adults in instinctive equip- 


Children, Types of 


ment is not so much a matter of difference 
in number of instincts, although some 
of those characterizing late adolescence 
are lacking, as in relative prominence and 
strength of the various instincts, in their 
modes of manifestation, and in the degree 
of their modification through habitua- 
tion.” 

The teacher must understand these 
phenomena and be ready to make use of 
them or to modify and direct them. (See 
Instinct, The Nature and Value of; Psy- 
chology, Child.) Children have often 
been ruined for life by teachers who have 
been really conscientious in their work 
and who have had only the best of inten- 
tions. Boys have been scolded and pun- 
ished for being bad when really they have 
not been bad at all. They were restless, 
but nature had provided in every nerve 
and muscle that they should be restless; 
they paid little attention to the teacher’s 
long and careful talk, but nature had 
endowed them with a very limited power 
of attention. The gang instinct and the 
instinctive hunger for appreciation was 
uppermost in the boy and he did before 
the class what he would not have done 
alone. As a result he was branded as a 
bad boy when at heart he was full of gen- 
erous impulses and needed only to be 
understood to become a force for good. 

Continually to scold a class and to sug- 
gest that it is the worst class in the 
school is to incite the class to badness. 
When a teacher is telling how bad his 
class is he is condemning himself and 
publishing abroad his ignorance of chil- 
dren. ‘The child needs only to be under- 


stood. F, L. Parrse. 
References: 
St. John, E. P. Child Nature and 
Child Nurture. (Boston, c1911.) 
Slattery, Margaret. 
Training Class. (Boston, 1910c06.) 
Weigle, L. A. The Pupil and The 
Teacher. (Philadelphia, c1911.) 


CHILDREN, TYPES OF.—In a general 
way, there are two types of children: the 
motor type and the sensory type. Motor 
children are quick, impulsive, suggestible, 
unreflective. In the classroom it is the 
motor type of child that puts up his hand 
and waves it excitedly to show the teacher 
that he knows the answer to the question 
to which the sensory type of child is 


232 


Talks with the 


slowly trying to evolve an answer. 


fair-skined and light haired, excitable of 


nature, quickly aroused; and the choleric | 


—dark-haired, sallow, less quick but more 


enduring, strong willed and determined. | 


Children of the sensory type are slow of 
action. 


Children’s Bureau 


The | 
motor type includes children of two | 
temperaments: the sanguine—blue-eyed, | 





They seem duller and less sug- | 


gestible. This type also includes two tem- | 
peraments: the phlegmatic—plump, often 
flabby, of figure and face, slow, patient, 


often stupid; and the melancholic— 
slender of figure, and large of head, 
dreamy, visionary, fonder of poetry and 
romance and music than of practical 
affairs. When wonder stories are told 
their eyes will shine with excitement. 
They will often sit quietly with a book 
rather than run and play with their com- 
panions. 

Hard and fast rules canot be laid down 
in regard to type or temperament; many 
children seem to be mixtures of several 
types, and the element of personality often 
runs counter to all theories; but in gen- 
eral it is true that the child’s tempera- 
ment will be more or less evident and will 
suggest to the teacher methods of man- 
agement. 
choleric, should be dealt with in a far dif- 


ferent manner from the sensory child. 


The one needs often to be repressed and 
taught self-control; and the other fre- 
quently needs encouragement and requires 


special effort and careful direction in 
order that his possibilities may be devel- 


oped. F, L. Parresr, 


References: 
Angell, J. R. Psychology. Ed. 4 
rev. (New York, c1904-08.) 
Miinsterberg, Hugo. Psychology and 
the Teacher. (New York, 1909-11.) 
Partridge, G. E. An Outline of In- 
dwidual Study. (New York, 1910.) 
Ribot, Th. The Psychology of the 
Emotions. (London, 1911.) 


CHILDREN’S BUREAU.—The Federal 
Children’s Bureau was established by act 
of Congress approved April 9, 1912, as a 
branch of the Department of Commerce 
and Labor. On March 4, 1913, this De- 
partment was divided into the Depart- 
ment of Commerce and the Department of 


Labor, and the Children’s Bureau became 


a unit of the last named. It began active 


The motor child, sanguine or 


Children’s Bureau 


operation on August 23, 1912, with a staff 
of fifteen persons and an appropriation of 
$25,640. 

_ Through the efforts of the National 
Child Labor Committee (qg. v.) and many 
eodperating agencies the bill for its estab- 
lishment was first introduced in Congress 
in the winter of 1905-06 and reintroduced 
two years later and at each successive Con- 
gress until its final passage. 

The work of the Bureau is defined by 
law as that of investigating and reporting 
upon all matters pertaining to the welfare 
of children and child life. After serious 
consideration of the most useful point at 
which to begin the work, the subject of 
infant mortality was chosen, with its 
closely allied interests of child welfare in 
the home and in the community. 

_ It was believed that this subject could 
be approached by a field study of one com- 
munity after another, of a size manage- 
able with the staff and appropriation at 
command, and with the possibility of ex- 
pansion at any time. It was also believed 
that infant mortality in the smaller com- 
munities was less favorable than is gen- 
erally taken for granted, and that the 
time had arrived for determining the 
facts, since the great cities have already 
developed methods which have proved 
effective in lowering infant mortality and 
which are readily applicable to the smaller 
communities. 

_ The plan from the first was to secure 
comparable data from typical communi- 
ties throughout the United States. Johns- 
town, Pa., was chosen as the first com- 
munity to be studied. Records of all 
babies born there within the year 1911 
were copied and the homes visited, with a 
view to securing not merely a history of 
the baby’s life but a picture of the social, 
civic, and industrial conditions of the 
family. 

_ The greater part of the publications of 
the first year grouped themselves around 
this subject, with a view to reénforcing 
the necessarily small amount of field work 
which was practicable. Conspicuous 
among these is a series discussing the 
home care of children, designed to pre- 
sent for the use of individual mothers the 
latest available scientific information in 
this field in so far as it relates to matters 
of hygiene and home care. 

Work was also begun upon certain 


233 


Children’s Bureau 


studies relating to child labor. These in- 
cluded a study of the methods of issuing 
employment certificates in various states ; 
a study of records showing positions held 
and work done by children between four- 
teen and sixteen years of age; a review of 
child labor legislation in the United 
States; and a summary of census figures 
affecting the labor of children. 

The creating of a library which should 
serve as a reservoir of current information 
on the rapidly developing science of child 
welfare; the adoption of the method of 
publication by exhibits for popular pur- 
poses; cooperation with clubs and organ- 
izations throughout the country desirous 
of doing volunteer work along the lines 
of the Bureau’s activities—all these were 
recognized as of immediate importance 
and a start made in their direction. In 
addition, various lines of inquiry appeared 
of pressing importance, in which it was 
not possible to do more than indicate the 
need, aS an inquiry into the inequality of 
operation of juvenile court laws; studies 
of the feebleminded; study of legislation 
affecting children; and a study of the 
operation of mothers’ pension laws, 

In accordance with the work done and 
needs for development indicated during 
the first year, a plan was submitted in the 
first annual report for enlarging the staff 
so as to provide 27 field agents, with the 
appropriate clerical and statistical force, 
and so as to provide also certain experts 
who should act as heads of the divisions 
into which the work of the Bureau natu- 
rally falls—a division of child health, in 
charge of a sanitarian; an industrial divi- 
sion, in charge of an expert on industrial 
matters affecting children ; a social service 
division, in charge of an expert on prac- 
tical sociology; and a statistical division, 
in charge of a statistical expert. 

On July 16, 1914, a bill was passed by 
Congress providing a staff of 76 persons 
and an appropriation of $164,640 for the 
fiscal year 1915, representing an increase 
of fifty-one persons in the staff, and $139,- 
000 in appropriation as requested. Under 
this increase the Bureau has been reorgan- 
ized with the new divisions mentioned 
above and the enlarged work of the Bureau 
is now going forward. . 

Miss Julia C. Lathrop of Dbhnois is 
Chief of the Bureau. Headquarters are 
in Washington, D. C. 


Children’s Church, The 


Publications have already been pre- 
pared as follows: 

First Annual Report of the Chief, Chil- 
dren’s Bureau, 1913. 1914. 

Second Annual Report of the Chief, 
Children’s Bureau, 1914. 1914. 

Birth Registration: An aid in protect- 
ing the lives and rights of children. 2d 
ed. 1914. 

Infant Mortality Series No. 1. Baby- 
saving Campaigns: A preliminary report 
on what American cities are doing to pre- 
vent infant mortality. 4thed, 1913. 

Infant Mortality Series No. 2. New 
Zealand Society for the Health of Women 
and Children: An example of methods of 
baby-saving work in small towns and rural 
communities, 1914. 

Infant Mortality Series No. 3. Infant 
Mortality in Johnstown. Results of a 
field study based on births in the calendar 


year 1911. 

Care of Children Series No. 1. Pa- 
rental Care. 3d.ed. 1918. 

Care of Children Series No. 2. Infant 


Care. 1914. 

Handbook of Federal Statistics, Part 1. 
Number of children in the United States, 
with their sex, age, race, nativity, parent- 
age, and geographic distribution. 2d ed. 
1913. 

Dependent Children Series No. 1. 
Laws Relating to “Mothers’ Pensions” im 
the United States, Denmark, and New 
Zealand, 1914. 

Industrial Series No. 1. 
Legislation in the United States. 
press. ) 

Industrial Series No. 2. Administration 
of child labor laws: _ 

Part 1—Administration of employment- 
certificate law in Connecticut. 

Part 2—Administration of the employ- 
ment and education certificate 
law in Massachusetts. 

Part 3—Administration of the employ- 
ment-certificate law in New 
York. 

Part 4—Administration of the employ- 
ment-certificate law in Mary- 
land. (In preparation.) 

Litit1an M. Lewis. 


Child Labor 
(In 


CHILDREN’S CHURCH, THE.—The 
Children’s Church is a serious and sincere 
attempt to solve the problem of the un- 
churched children. It sprang into exist- 


234 


Children’s Church, The 


ence after several years of personal work 
and interest among the children of the 
public schools as Chairman of the Boarc 
of Education in a suburban town in th 
vicinity of Boston. 

A study of educational problems anc 
of modern methods of instruction aj 
applied in the schools of the state con 
vinced the writer that the system in vogui 
in many of the religious institutions i 
antiquated and ineffective. The various 
societies affiliated with the church, not 
withstanding their many excellencies, sue 
ceed in bringing only forty per cent 0 
the children into the active membershij, 
of the church. The loss to organize 
Christianity of sixty out of every oni 
hundred children who have been fosteret 
under its care is a very serious and lam 
entable one. It was to stop this wast 
and to try to recover this loss that th 
Children’s Church was organized. 

As at present constituted the ordinar, 
church does not offer a very attractiv, 
program to a little child. It cannot i 
the nature of things, any more than j 
college or a high school can make a ver, 
successful appeal to the intelligence 0 
to the imagination of primary schog 
pupils. In all secular education method. 
and lessons must be adapted to the child’ 
mind. The Children’s Church is jus 
what its name implies—a church for chil 
dren, There is nothing childish in 11 
however. It is simply an adaptation 0 
religion to the mind of the child. | 

The service is held on Sunday aftel! 
noon at four o’clock in the church. J] 
is as quiet, as reverential, and as cheerft) 
as may be found in any church of adul| 
worshipers. It may be more liturgicé| 
and ritualistic perhaps than some peop| 
demand, but children are poets and artis!| 
and musicians, and the things which th 
adult despises because of prejudice, the 
in their simple naturalness, enjoy an) 
appreciate. This is the reason that chi 
dren are more responsive to truth tha 
are adults. They are also more impre) 
sionable. The heart of a child can } 
reached through the eye as well as throug| 
the ear. For that reason a vested boy, 
choir is maintained with processional an 
recessional hymns at the opening and th 
closing of the service. i | 

The sweet strains of music stealin 


into the sanctuary through the half-ope 


| 











Children’s Church, The 


chapel door arrest the attention of the 
children more effectively than a vigor- 
ously executed organ prelude. When the 
double line of boys in black cassocks and 
white cottas file in singing in childish 
treble “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” the 
young worshipers stand in reverent and 
expectant attitude. The ‘processional 
hymn by the choir is followed by the 
Shepherd Psalm recited in unison, after 
which follow the doxology and the Lord’s 
Prayer by choir and congregation. ‘The 
reading of a Bible story in modern Eng- 
lish is next in order with simple com- 
ments and exposition. After the Scrip- 
ture reading prayer is offered by the 
pastor during which the heads in the 
pews are bowed in silence and devotion. 
This is followed by an organ response. 
Four of the vested singers take up the 
offering and stand before the altar during 
the prayer of thanksgiving. A children’s 
hymn sung by the children standing rests 
them by a change of attitude and pre- 
pares them for the fifteen minutes of 
‘quiet sitting. The text is then announced 
and the sermon preached. Sermons to 
‘children must be worth listening to. 
‘They will give one their attention if he is 
worthy of it. The first sentence is often 
the secret of success. Never to disap- 
point their expectancy, is a good motto. 
The closing hymn is congregational, the 
choir boys leading in the singing and re- 
tiring to the chapel as they entered, the 
sweet cadences of their voices growing 
fainter in the distance and lingering as 
a gracious memory while the benediction 
‘of the pastor brings the service to a close. 
_ While this in general is the order of 
worship, the order is frequently varied. 
‘Sameness is avoided, but just as a line 
vill change the contour of a face so a 
‘simple suggestion will alter the whole 
aspect of a service. 

_ Since organizing the First Children’s 
‘Church in America, letters of inquiry and 
‘commendation have been received from 
all parts of the country, and the writer 
has frequently been requested to suggest 
a list of subjects for a series of sermons, 
and to state what relation the Children’s 
‘Church bears to the Pastor’s class, the 
‘Sunday school and to the Young People’ S 
‘society. 

_ Preaching to children (g. v.) must be 
a positive pleasure to the preacher or he 





235 


Children’s Church, The 


would better not attempt it. Children 
not only furnish their minister with topics 
for his sermons, but also with ideas, sug- 
gestions, and illustrations. 

It is difficult to pass through a throng 
of children after a preaching service with- 
out finding text and sermon for the fol- 
lowing Sabbath. Children are always 
thinking; that is why they say so many 
bright things. They furnish the preacher 
with much of his homiletic material. For 
example, a child showed the writer a 
birthday toy. It was a group of three 
little monkeys. The first was covering 
its eyes, the second its ears, and the third 
its mouth with its hands, thus illustrating 
the proverb “See no evil, hear no evil, 
speak no evil.” The child was asked to 
bring the monkeys to church the follow- 
ing Sunday. She did so and took a seat 
by the minister’s side upon the platform. 
Her birthday toy was used as the object 
sermon. The children were asked to 
imitate the monkeys as each point was 
emphasized in the lesson. 

An ordinary imagination can see how 
such truths may be applied to children 
and how easy it is for them to “see the 
point.” In talking to children it is not 
necessary to give “a moral” to a story. 
They will invariably anticipate it. An 
object sermon is usually of more interest 
than any other, although a sermon illus- 
trated by lantern views or picture cards 
has a rare attraction, 

Among others that have been found 
helpful as object sermons might be men- 
tioned : 

Pins and Needles, a topic full of points. 

Nails, a subject with many heads. 

A Pedometer, for our walk in life. 

A Watch, W-watch, A-actions, T- 
thoughts, C-character, H-heart. 

A Bunch of Keys, A key to every heart 
and life. 

A Looking Glass, to see what we are, 
what we were, what we shall be. 

Bible stories may be grouped as follows: 

The Cradle and the Crocodiles—Moses. 

Isaac and the Woodpile. 

The Twins, Jacob and Hsau. 

The Angels on the Ladder. 

David, the Giant Killer. 

A Fish Story—Jonah. 

A Fire Story—The Three Hebrew 
Children. 

A Lion Story—Daniel. 


Children’s Church, The 


A Bear Story—The Prophet and the 
Children. 

A Ghost Story—Saul and the Witch of 
Endor. 

Another group series may be given from 
live animals, Spiders, Ants, Bees, Doves, 
Canary (singing in captivity). Chickens 
at Easter time are very effective. These 
have been used in the Children’s Church 
with much success. 

Bible and Christian heroes are always 
well received and can be amply illus- 
trated. For example: 

The Carpenter—Jesus. 

The Tinker—John Bunyan. 

The Shoemaker—William Carey. 

The Rail Splitter—Abraham Lincoln. 

The Tax Collector—Matthew. 

The Doctor—Luke. 

The Fisherman—Peter. 

The Children’s Church is not a Sun- 
day school or a Young People’s society 
although it is related to both. It is a 
church for children of all ages. Parents 
come frequently with children in arms 
and are always welcome. Except for this 
service, some mothers could not attend 
divine worship. The ages of the children 
vary from five to fifteen. Nearly all of 
them are in the Bible school. The mem- 
bers of the church are the children who 
have attended the Pastor’s class, who have 
appeared before the Pastoral committee, 
have been regularly voted into the mem- 
bership of the church and have received 
the sacrament of baptism and the Holy 
communion, 


Form of Admission to Membership in 


The Children’s Church. 


And they brought young children to him, 
that he should touch them; and his disciples 
rebuked those that brought them. But when 
Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and 
said unto them, Suffer the little children 
to come unto me, and forbid them not; for 
of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I 
say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive 
the kingdom of God as a little child, he 
shall not enter therein. And he took them 
up in his arms, and put his hands upon 
them, and blessed them. 

Then came the disciples unto Jesus, say- 
ing, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of 
heaven? 

And Jesus called a little child unto him, 
and set him in the midst of them. * * * 

And said, Verily I say unto you except ye 
be converted, and become as little children, 
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of 
heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble 


236 


Bs 


ix 


Children’s Church, The 


himself as this little child, the same is the 
greatest in the kingdom of heaven. * * # 

And whoso shall receive one such little 
child in my name receiveth me. 

The children to be received shall rise and 
take their places before the Altar as their 
names are read. 

The Minister shall then say: 

My Dear Children: 

We welcome you here to-day that you may 
become Members of Christ’s Church; learn- 
ers in His School, helpers in His household, 

We are giad that you have learned to love 
the things that concern the kingdom of God 
upon the earth, and that you are willing be- 
fore your comrades and school-fellows to 
make the following 


CONFESSION OF LOVE 


1. We love God who is our Father in 
Heaven: loving, wise and good. 

2. We love Jesus Christ his Son who igs 
our Saviour and Friend whose life among 
men was pure and beautiful and divine. 

3. We love the Holy Spirit who through 
the voice within, which we call conscience, 
becomes our Teacher and guide in life. 

4. We love the Holy Bible. It is God’s 
love letter to his children. In it he tells 
us what he wants us to do and to be. 

5. We love the Church of God. It is our 
Father’s house in which his children meet 
for prayer and worship. 

6. We love the sayings of Jesus on the. 
Mount; The Beatitudes, the Golden Rule, 
the New Commandment, and his sweet in- 
vitation to the children. | 

7. We love the Lord’s Day. It is our rest 
day from play and work, and our Sabbath 
Day for rest and Christian Service. | 

8. We love the simple life as revealed in 
Jesus, and love to think pure thoughts, to 
speak kind words and to do loving deeds. 

9. We love the beautiful world in which 
we live because it is God’s world, and all 
who live in it because we are all God’s chil: 
dren, and should love one another. 

10. We love our eternal home in heaven 
which God has prepared for all his children 
and where, after the death of the body, all 
who love him will live with him in perfect 
peace and happiness forevermore. 

The Ordinance of Baptism is here ad 
ministered to those who have not been 
baptized. 
















THE COVENANT 


Having been baptized in the name of thé 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, you 
do now enter into a very sacred covenani 
with this Church. . 

The Covenant is your promise to tht 
Church and the Church’s promise to you. 


THE MEMBER’S PROMISE 


Loving your heavenly Father and trustinj 
in him for help and guidance you desire t| 
unite with his children in the friendshij 
and fellowship of his church. | 

You are truly sorry for the wrong yo! 
have done, and will sincerely try to do right 


Katey a 


Children’s Church, The 


You accept Jesus as your Saviour and 
Friend, and promise to love and serve him 
all the days of your life. 

You promise to try to be like him day 
by day, and to do what he would like to 
have you do whether at work or at play. 
You also promise to love and to honor your 
parents, to be respectful and obedient to your 
teachers, and’ to be kind and affectionate to 
all. 

Minister. Do you thus promise? 

Answer. I do. 






THE CHURCH’S PROMISE 


We, then, the members of this Church 
welcome you to our friendship. We are 
happy to share with you the blessings and 
the privileges of our Church home and 
‘Church life. 
| We promise to pray for you, to love you 
| and to help you all we can so that your life 
jand our life may be a blessing to the home, 
\the Church and the world. 
| In the name of the children’s Jesus, and 
‘in behalf of this Church I now give to you 
/the right hand of welcome, with this motto 
‘for your Christian life. 

Bible verse for watchword. 


| 
| BENEDICTION 


The Lord bless you and keep you, the 
‘Lord make his face shine upon you and be 
gracious unto you; The Lord lift up his 
countenance upon you and give you peace. 
Amen. 





_ After a year or more according to age 
and experience in the Children’s Church, 
‘the members are graduated into the adult 
church by the simple process of promo- 
) tion. The children are not asked to make 
a confession of belief, but a confession 
of love. The beliefs of people divide and 
estrange them. It is love that unites. 
A simple covenant is the basis of church 


fellowship. Church membership is made_ 


to appear a beautiful and natural expe- 
‘Tience. 
The Children’s Church is a step for- 
ward and upward. It is not a stumbling- 
block, but a stepping stone, not a barrier 
but an open door. It takes away the 
argument that the children are too young 
to join the church and changes the par- 
ents into allies and advocates of the Chil- 
dren’s Christ. It opens their eyes to the 
value of child culture and child training. 
It emphasizes the fact that a child may 
enter the Kingdom at its mother’s knee. 
It affirms the truth that children may be 
born again, and yet know no more of the 
second birth than they know of the first. 
It invests the minister with new power 
and ever-increasing influence. 


237 


Children’s Day 


The Children’s Church has the effect of 
enhancing the value of the church itself 
in the thought of the children, and im- 
parts a new meaning to the words of 
Jesus, “Suffer the little children to come 
unto me, and forbid them not, for of such 
is the kingdom of heaven.” (See. The 
Junior Congregation.) 

C. F. H. CraTHern. 


CHILDREN’S COURT.—Sexr JUVENILE 
Court. 


CHILDREN’S DAY.—This day has won — 
for itself an important place in the Sun- 
day-school year in nearly all parts of the 
United States, where, as a rule, it is ob- 
served the second Sunday i in June. 

Its History. It is not possible to de- 
termine how or when the observance of . 
the day originated. From early times 
many pastors devoted certain Sabbaths to 
special services for children. Children’s 
sermons were preached, and with the de- 
velopment of the Sunday school, concerts 
by children and young people were held. 

In 1856, Rev. Charles H. Leonard, 
D.D., then pastor of the First Universal- 
ist Church of Chelsea, Mass., set apart a 
Sunday for the dedication of children to 
the Christian life, and for the re-dedica- 
tion of parents and guardians to the bring- 
ing-up of their children in Christian nur- 
ture. This service was first observed the 
second Sunday in June. 

Among the early observers of the day 
was Rev. Richard 8. Storrs, D.D., of 
Brooklyn. The New York Observer com- 
mented upon his custom, in the following 
words: “Dr. Storrs stood by the commun- 
ion table, on which lay a piled-up heap of 
flowers, tied with dainty ribbons. Calling 
by name each child of the church, who, 
during the year, had reached the age of 
seven, the pastor presented each one with 
a kiss, a bouquet of flowers, and a well- 
bound Bible, inscribed with the date of 
the child’s birth, the date of presentation, 
and the pastor’s signature.” 

The pastor of the Kirk Street Congre- 
gational Church, Lowell, Mass., in 1870, 
arranged an interesting children’s pro- 
gram, called “The Rose of Sharon,” and 
the day became known as “Flower Sun- 
day,” and attracted considerable atten- 
tion. 

Many pastors of different denominations 
observed Children’s Day under different 


Children’s Day 


names, such as “Rose Sunday,” “Flower 
Sunday,” “Christening Sunday,” “Chil- 
dren’s Sunday,” or “Children’s Day.” 

Denominational Recognition. In 1865, 
a Committee of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church arranged in connection with the 
celebration of the hundredth anniversary 
of Methodism, a children’s service, by 
which a large sum was raised to assist 
meritorious Sunday-school pupils to obtain 
an education. At the next Methodist Con- 
ference, in 1868, the Committee recom- 
mended that the second Sabbath in June 
be annually observed as Children’s Day. 
This gave the subject wide publicity. The 
recommendation by this Committee of the 
Methodist Church was continued until, in 
the year 1881, the Ecumenical Methodist 
Council at London recommended “That 
one day in every year be faithfully ob- 
served as Children’s Day.” 

Between the date of the recommenda- 
tion of the Committee of the Methodist 
Church in 1865, and the official action of 
that denomination in 1881, the Universal- 
ist Convention at Baltimore, in Sep- 
tember, 1867, passed the following resolu- 
tion: 

“Resolved: That we commend the prac- 
tice of those churches, in our order, that 
set apart one Sunday in each year as Chil- 
dren’s Day, when parents bring to the 
altar their most precious treasures, and 
give them to the Lord by appropriate and 
sacred rites.” 

This indicates that the observance had 
become common in this body at that time. 
The custom had prevailed to quite a large 
extent in many of the denominations. 

In 1883, the Presbyterian General As- 
sembly designated the second Sabbath in 
June as Children’s Day, and the same year 
the National Council of Congregational 
Churches, and nearly all the state bodies 
of that denomination in the United States, 
passed resolutions commending the ob- 
servance of the day. About this time 
many other denominations adopted sim- 
ilar recommendations. | 

In Other Countries. In the Dominion 
of Canada many churches have followed 
the American custom, and have observed 
the day in the month of June. Some 
denominations, however, recommend a dif- 
ferent date and a different form of observ- 
ance. The Presbyterian Church of Can- 
ada asked their Young People’s Societies 


238 


+ 


Children’s Day 


and Sunday schools to unite in the obsery- 


ance of the last Sunday in September, 


with meetings preceding it to plan for 
quickening interest in Sabbath-school 
work, in Young People’s Societies, and 
boys’ clubs. 


In the year 1912, nearly two thousand 


of the three thousand schools of that de- 
nomination, joined in observing the day, 
contributing $12,921 for the work of The 
Sunday School Board. 

The Church of England in Canada ob- 
serves the third Sunday in October, with 
special services for church and Sunday 
school, and offerings for the work of the 
Sunday School Commission. 

In other denominations in Canada and 
Great Britain, the observance of the day 
is growing, some observing it in the 


springtime, others in the autumn. (See 
Decision Day.) 
Methods of Observance. That which 


has been most emphasized in the observ- 
ance of the day is a manifestation and 
deepening of the love of the church for 
its children and of the children for the 
church. The second Sunday in June, 
which, in the largest part of America, is 
usually one of the most beautiful Sabbaths 


in the year, was by common consent 


chosen. In the Southland, on the Pacific 
Coast, and in large cities, an earlier date 
is sometimes selected. 

In making the day winsome to the 


young mind and heart, churches or school- 


rooms are tastefully decorated. Flowers, 
gathered by the children and young 
people, from fields and woods, often have 
a prominent place. Potted plants are 
frequently used in decoration, and pre- 
sented at the close of the service to the 
primary and junior pupils of the school. 
Singing birds were sometimes brought, 
but this custom seems to be declining. 


The day furnishes a large opportunity 


for attracting those who are not in the 
habit of attending religious gatherings. 
Children are attracted by the beauty and 
brightness of the service; parents go to 
see and to hear the children. 
aroused in preparing for the day, and the 
knowledge that it is to be different from 


an ordinary service, brings large numbers — 
and furnishes an opportunity for making 


a deep and lasting impression. 
Special pains is taken to secure the pres- 
ence of mothers, whose infants are mem- 


The interest 


Children’s Day 


bers of the Cradle Roll Department. Spe- 
cial recognition is sometimes given to the 
Home Department, aged members being 
brought in automobiles or other convey- 
ances, and comfortable seats provided. 

Churches which have branch mission 
schools frequently have a union service 
for Children’s Day. It is also a delight- 
ful custom on the frontier, for neighbor- 
ing Sunday schools to join in a Children’s 
Day celebration, bringing refreshments, so 
‘that the day may be spent in Christian 
fellowship. 

While inferior music has often been 
used, because of its “catchy” character, the 
tendency is growing for the use of better 
jmusic, which is bright and cheerful, but 
appropriate also for religious uses. The 
day furnishes large opportunities for cul- 
‘tivating a taste for the best hymns of the 
‘church, suited to childhood and youth. 
The preparation of these gives an oppor- 
tunity for learning some of the best sacred 
songs. Recitations and exercises of differ- 
‘ent kinds have hitherto had a large place. 
Beautiful words from the mouths of chil- 
dren and young people have been used as 
a means of conveying important truths, 
and the memorizing of them has been 
thought helpful to multitudes. The ad- 
dresses by pastors and others, under the 
inspiring influences of the day, have found 
entrance to ready and eager minds. Pro- 
‘motion and other exercises connected with 
the school have often been introduced. 

' In a large number of churches the 
‘Morning service is devoted to the Chil- 
dren’s Day exercises, the church and the 
‘Sunday school combining, the music being 
‘suited to the children and young people. 
In other churches the entire day is given 
up to this observance:—In the morning 
the church service is held, with the dedi- 
-eation of children, presentation of Bibles, 
or other exercises which emphasize the 
Interest of the church in the child. In 
the afternoon or evening, children’s ser- 
vices are held, with singing and recita- 
‘tions. Dialogues and exercises of a dra- 
matic character are frequently used. 
Small children have often had a prominent 
place, though there is now a tendency to 
give them less conspicuous parts than here- 
tofore. 

Orders of Service. Nearly all denomi- 
-hations, and a large number of independ- 
ent publishing houses issue orders of ser- 


| 
| 









239 


Child’s Communion 


vice for Children’s Day. ‘These in the 
aggregate amount to millions of copies 
each year. Many of them are attractively 
illustrated by pictures from the great 
masters or modern artists. 

These services have been designed to 
stimulate love for the Sunday school and 
church, and many of them have also been 
patriotic in character. National flags and 
Christian banners have had a prominent 
place in the decorations and programs. 
The literature is frequently furnished free 
by Denominational Boards, when the 
offering is taken for the work in which 
they are engaged. 

Cultwating Benevolence. From the 
first, the observance of the day has been 
associated with benevolent objects, gen- 
erally of some denominational character. 
In a majority of denominations the object 
of benevolence has been the extension or 
the improvement of Sunday-school work 
or Christian education. Schools and 
churches of more independent character 
frequently devote the offerings of the day 
to local charity or some special altruistic 
object. The day arose in response to the 
quickened, warm-hearted interest of the 
church in its children. Its observance has 
been strengthened by the great opportu- 
nity for reaching and helping those chil- 
dren who are needy or those who have 
come from other lands and are unreached 
by the church life of America. Because 
of its wholesome influence upon the indi- 
vidual church, and in connection with its 
wide-reaching missionary influence, the 
day gives promise of permanency and in- 
creasing usefulness. 

WiLi1AM EwIne. 


CHILDREN’S DAY (GREAT BRIT- 
AIN).—Sere Deciston Day. 


CHILDREN’S PRAYERS.—SEE Wor- 
SHIP, CHILDREN’S. 


CHILDREN’S READING.--—Srrz Ap- 
PENDIX: TypicaL 8. 8. Lisrary; Books 
FoR THE S. S. Liprary, SELECTION OF; 
LITERATURE, Moral AND RELIGIOUS EpDu- 
CATION THROUGH. 


CHILDREN’S WORSHIP.—Srrt Wor- 
SHIP, CHILDREN’S, 


CHILD’S COMMUNION.—There is a 
wide diversity in the practices of the vari- 
ous Christian bodies as to the time of ad- 


Child’s Communion 


mitting children to the sacrament of the 
Lord’s Supper. The Greek Church ad- 
mits infants, the Roman Catholic Church 
admits children who have reached the age 
of seven. The general rule in those Prot- 
estant denominations which practice the 
rite of confirmation is that the first com- 
munion shall come immediately after con- 
firmation. Churches that do not practice 
infant baptism admit to the communion 
only those who have made public confes- 
sion of Christ and been baptized. Among 
non-liturgical Protestant churches that 
practice infant baptism there is no uni- 
form custom in regard to admitting to the 
communion children who have not as- 
sumed the vows of church membership. 
In most of these bodies, however, there is 
a growing tendency to lower the age at 
which they are admitted and to admit 
them without requiring that they shall 
have been formally received into’ the 
church. 

A large proportion of Protestants hold 
that the child through baptism becomes a 
subject of saving grace and a member of 
the body of Christ. In practice they do 
not admit a baptized child to the Holy 
Communion until it has been carefully in- 
structed in the Word of God and the doc- 
trines of the church, and has come to years 
when it may intelligently assume for itself 
the solemn vows assumed for it in infancy 
by its parents. 

Some Protestant denominations hold 
that the sacrament of infant baptism is 
initiatory, and regard all baptized children 
as having been introduced‘into the mem- 
bership of the church. They teach that 
“since the fall of Adam all men begotten 
according to nature are born with sin,” but 
that “baptism worketh forgiveness of 
sin. . . and confers everlasting salvation 
upon all who believe as the word and 
promise of God declare.” The denomina- 
tions which hold to this view regard the 
work of Christian education as exclusively 
the prerogative of the church, which she 
may not commit to any other organization 
and which no other organization has the 
right to assume. 

The effective religious training of the 
child is implied in any case. Those 
churches which admit children to com- 
munion hold that while the child cannot 


comprehend the deeper mystical and spir-- 


itual meanings of the Lord’s Supper as 


240 


ia) 
a 


Child’s Religion 


it is interpreted by theologians, its sym- 
bolism makes a strong appeal to his reli- 
gious emotions and imagination, and there- 
fore may become a most effective agency 
in his religious education. There is some- 
thing profoundly impressive to the child 
whose religious sensibilities have been 
properly cultivated in the visible emblems 
of the broken body and shed blood of the 
Christ. Especially is this the case where 
the communion service is attended by more 
or less of formal ceremonial, as for in- 
stance, when the communicants kneel to- 
gether about the altar and the officiating 
minister repeats to each as the elements 
are offered the majestic and solemn words 
of Jesus, “This is my body, my blood; do 
this in remembrance of me.” Many have 
testified to the almost magical influence 
of such a service upon their hearts in their 
childhood. Of course, the ecstasy of grati- 
tude and worship into which the child 
may be thus lifted is bound to be tempo- 
rary, but it is believed that it may leave a 
permanent impression upon the young life, 
It is also believed by many that the serv- 
ice helps the child to realize that he be- 
longs to the communion of saints and is in 
some sense a sharer both in the benefits 
and responsibilities which such a fellow-— 
ship involves. In other words, it helps to 
bring him to a realization of the social sig- 
nificance of religion and of himself as a 
social being. It should thus tend to 
awaken and develop those feelings which 
become a vital bond uniting the life of the 
individual with the life of God and the 
life of humanity and which, if properly 
directed, may issue in worthy and devoted 
service. . 
It is possible that a child may partake 
of the communion in such a light and flip- 
pant way that he may receive no benefit 
from it or may even be injured by it. But 
when such is the case, the fault may lie 
not with the child, but with those who are 
responsible for his religious training. If 
he has been properly taught and if the 
communion is reverently administered and 
reverently received by his elders, the ap- 
peal of the service to his religious imagin- 
ation has been known to prove almost ir- 


resistible, E. B. CHAPPELL. 
CHILD'S RELIGION.—Srr Cury’s — 


Rexieaious Liperty; Reiicion, THE 
CHILD’s, AND ITS CULTURE, ? 


Child’s Religious Liberty 


CHILD’S RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.—Re- 

ligious liberty is the freedom to worship 
God as one chooses; not the freedom to 
refrain from worshiping God at all—that 
is irreligious liberty. This distinction 
should be kept clearly in mind, not only 
when one is considering the subject in its 
relation to a grown person, but especially 
so when one is viewing it in its relation 
‘to a child. The child’s religious liberty 
‘does not mean habitual absence from 
,ehurch and Sunday school, nor even desul- 
tory attendance at the one or the other; 
‘it does not mean a neglect of, nor even an 
‘irregular attention to, the study of the 
Bible; nor does it mean that the child is 
‘not to be taught a particular form of 
‘Christian faith. Religious liberty is pos- 
‘Itive, not negative; and, like religion 
uitself, it depends upon action, being, and 
state of being, not upon the negations of 
these. 
_ The child, in order to have religious 
liberty, must first have religion. He 
‘should be given the knowledge that is his 
birthright: the knowledge of the greatness 
and the goodness of God; the knowledge 
of the redemption of God’s_ people, 
‘through Jesus Christ; the knowledge that 
he is a “member of Christ, a child of God, 
and an inheritor of the kingdom of 
heaven”; and the knowledge that he is 
“called to be a saint,” that he is to strive 
junceasingly to pattern his life upon the 
perfect life of Christ. These are essential 
facts of the Christian religion; and they 
‘should be taught the child. 

It is usually in respect to times, places, 
and methods of teaching the child these 
facts that confusion of mind as to reli- 
gious liberty is apt to arise. In order to 
have religion, the child must learn what 
‘religion is. How is he to learn? By a 
study of the Bible, and he is likely to find 
the best opportunities to study the Bible 
at Sunday school. How can he best learn 
the significance of that study? By going 
tochurch. To require these things of the 
child is not to deprive him of religious 
‘iberty; for, to him, not one of them is 
‘worship, not even church-going; they are 
ul, rather, component parts of his reli- 
zious education, of the teaching he must 
‘eceive as to Whom to worship, and how. 
‘Should church-going on the part of chil- 
Tren be compulsory?” is a question often 
wsked; and almost as often answered by 








241 


Child’s Religious Liberty 


an emphatic, “No; it should be volun- 
tary!” Happily, it may be. A normal 
child, in a family of which the grown-up 
members are regular in their attendance 
at church, seldom needs to be compelled 
to go to church; he goes willingly, even 
eagerly. The ordinary child easily be- 
comes a regular attendant at the Sunday 
school, and learns zestfully all that it can 
teach him. Not in connection with any 
of these things does the problem of the 
child’s religious liberty arise. 

It is only after the child has been 
taught what religion is, and after he has 
made his own the simple elements of that 
instruction—when he is no longer merely 
a child learning about religion, but is a 
religious child that he has reached so 
much as the possibility of religious lib- 
erty. He is then able to have it and he 
then should have it. He may ask for 
such liberty; but, even if he does not, it 
should be given to him. Prayer and 
thanksgiving, love and trust, he knows 
now that he ought to offer to God. Serv- 
ice, and readiness to be served in turn; 
love, and longsuffering, he has learned 
that he should render to his fellow-men. 
How shall he do this? What shall be 
the details of his Christian living? His 
religious liberty is the freedom to decide 
this for himself. 

There is no question as to whether or 
not a child should learn to pray. The 
question that will be asked is, “What 
prayers shall he say?” Here is a child 
who wishes to pray in his own words; 
there is another, who prefers to pray in 
words set down for him; what procedure 
should be followed in each case? The 
religious liberty of these two children con- 
sists in allowing them to use such prayers 
as they desire. There is but one prayer 
which is outside because it is above this 
condition—the lLord’s Prayer. Every 
child, in whatever other words he prays, 
should know the Lord’s Prayer. (See 
Worship, Children’s. ) 

In the matter of thanksgiving: In the 
life of the average child, it has to do 
largely with “grace before meals.” Here 
the question is not, “Should the child say 
grace?” But, “What shall be its form?” 
Often this should be left to the decision 
of the child, 

With regard to church-going the ques- 
tion is not, “Should the child go to 


China 


church?” But, “To what church shall 
be go?” Ordinarily, the child goes to the 
church of his parents. Occasionally, 
however, it happens that he is attracted 
to some other church. Should he be per- 
mitted to attend its services? This is, 
perhaps, the most difficult to answer of all 
the several questions touching upon the 
religious question of a person of any age, 
from a young child to an old man. It 
has never been easy for one person to 
allow this particular freedom to another. 
It should be allowed, ungrudgingly, 
gladly, not only to every grown person, 
but to any child who may ask for it as 
the occasional child who desires to attend 
another church than that of his parents 
will have a valid reason for such a wish. 

Free to pray as he chooses, free to give 
thanks as he prefers, free ‘to attend that 
form of “divine worship” he finds most 
akin to his own nature, the child should 
be given an equal liberty of choice in the 
manner and method of doing his duty 
toward his neighbor. Having been taught 
what are the fundamentals of that duty, 
being possessed of the desire to fulfill it, 
he should be permitted the liberty to do 
it as his own conscience tells him. He 
should be permitted to serve, and accept 
service; and to love, and forgive, in his 
own way. He should be left free to obey 
his high calling. 

Religious liberty, whether in the case 
of the child or the grown person, does 
not mean the liberty to do as he pleases; 
it means the liberty to do as he may be- 
lieve God pleases. This the child should 
be taught. He should learn that there is 
no end to learning in respect to religion 
and the living of the religious hfe; and 
that he should use every aid open to him 
as a child, and every “means of grace” 
opening to him as he progresses from 
childhood to old age; that his learning in 
regard to these things is to keep pace 
with his need of learning if he is to know, 
increasingly, what God _ does please. 
Above all, he must be assured that real 
religious liberty is the liberty wherewith 
Christ has made man free—the liberty to 


follow him. pyigapere McCRACKEN. 
CHINA, MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
EDUCATION IN.—In the civilizations of 


Asia, education has always .consisted 
largely of what were regarded as religious 


242 


y 
China 


and moral truths, so that it is difficult to 
differentiate religious and moral educa- 
tion from education in general. The text- 
books used have been the sacred books of 
the nation, the history, philosophy, or 
poetry contained in them having a reli- 
gious and ethical bearing. Intellectual 
discipline, literary culture, or the acqui- 
sition of general knowledge, were regarded 
as of secondary importance and to be 
gained, as it were, incidentally. 

This has been preéminently the case in 
China since very early times. In the 
small work whose title might be trans- 
lated “The Larger Education,” Confucius 
says (about 500 B. C.), “the larger edu- 
cation aims to develop character, to re- 
generate the nation, and to halt only when 
it has arrived at the highest good.” 

The Chinese have always been skeptical 
as to the value of purely intellectual 
studies not intended to convey moral les- 
sons. To them educational methods are 
of worth only in proportion as by means 
of them are elucidated, emphasized, and 
enforced the fundamental principles 
upon which alone character may be built. 

These are grouped in the Confucian 
system (which is the religion of the 
state) under humanity, righteousness, 
conduct, wisdom, veracity (Jen, Ye, Li, 
Chih, Hsin), while the social relation- 
ships are systematized as those existing 
between sovereign and minister, father 
and son, husband and wife, older and 
younger brothers, friends. Chinese edu- 
cation consists in the expounding and 
application of these five virtues and five 
relations. The textbooks used treat them 
from every standpoint in poetry, history 
and philosophy, in recorded conversa-, 
tions, and in the form of terse maxims, 

Until within the last few years the | 
pupil was required to commit to memory 
all that he read, so that his mind in the 
course of time became a veritable the- 
saurus of the best thought of the past. 
The Western student cannot conceive of 
the extreme familiarity which the Chinese | 
possess with their ancient books through 
this prolonged and severe discipline. The 
result is an absolute submission to the | 
principles contained in them, and come 
plete unanimity of opinion as to their’ 
admirable character. If the Chinese too 
often fail to live up to the high stand- 
ards of conduct fixed in the classics, and 


China 


fail to practice what they preach, that is 
an inconsistency which every moral and 
religious teacher has reason to mourn in 
every land. 

The books referred to in the order in 
which they are learned, consist of the 
“Trimetrical Classic” (San dz djing), 
“The Hundred Surnames” (Be djta 
hsing), “The Thousand Character Classic” 
(Chien dz wen), “The Little Learning” 
‘(Hsiao hsue) “The Filial Piety” (Hsiao 
djing), “The Four Books” (Sse Shu), 
which are made up of the “Great learn- 
ing,” the “Golden Mean,” the Analects, 
or conversations of Confucius, and the 
works of Mencius. 

Then follow the “Five Classics” which 
consist of the “Book of History” (Shu 
djing), “Book of Odes” (Shih djing), 
“The Book of Changes” (Yi djing), 
“Book of Rites” (Zi djt) and “Spring 
and Autumn” (Chun Chin). These 
books, together with: the comments upon 
them, | and the works inspired by them, 
‘comprise an immense literature of which 
any nation might be proud, for it is rever- 
‘ent in tone, highly finished in its literary 
form, containing no dubious anecdote or 
description, and is in short a literature 
which is intended to impress upon the 
learner a sense of moral obligations and 
to awaken and cultivate within him an 
appreciation of the beautiful. 
| Space does not permit further descrip- 
tion of this literature, which is certainly 
the noblest of any which takes its origin 
in Asia, with the exception of our own 
Bible. But while this is true, it must be 
admitted that when we examine Chinese 
literature for its teaching on purely reli- 
zious themes we are disappointed, even 
hough the existence of a spiritual 
Supreme Being is assumed, to whom men 
must answer for the deeds done in the 
ody. 

_ The Chinese to-day possess no clearly 
*xpressed religious truth which becomes 
wticulate in worship, or which is im- 
dressed upon students in the course of 
their education. 

' Ancestral worship is really the chief 
venet which, as a part of the Confucian 
jystem, is regarded as vital, and in which 
ustruction is given. Nothing is taught 
n the schools of Buddhism or Taoism as 
uch, although in the temples of these 
uults, candidates for the priesthood are 




















243 


China, 8. 8. Work in 


taught the rituals and something of the 
literature. The Confucjan system of in- 
struction has, however, been to some 
extent influenced by them. 

Having thus outlined the form of tra- 
ditional education in China, and briefly 
sketched something of its moral content, 
it remains to be said that since the reform 
edicts of the Emperor Kuanghsii in 1898, 
under the influence of Kang Yii Wei and 
other reformers, a great change in educa- 
tional policy has been initiated. 

This is nothing less than an attempt 
to abolish or greatly modify the methods 
hitherto in vogue, and to introduce into 
China the educational systems of the 
West. After the failure of the reaction- 
ary Boxer uprising in 1900, this reform 
movement grew in influence until, through 
the revolution ended in 1913, it has be- 
come firmly established. 

At present in China the Ministry of 
Education is developing a system of 
schools beginning with the kindergarten 
and ending with the university which is 
to permeate the life of the whole nation. 
In general the system is based upon that 
of Japan, which in turn was modeled 
chiefly after the German system. This 
education is largely secular, and the 
Chinese are now trying to solve the 
problem as to how they may secure the 
science of the West without losing the 
moral and religious teaching of Con- 
fucius, of which the youth of China are 
growing increasingly impatient. (See Re- 
ligious Education, Ancient, History of.) 

P. D. BERGEN. 


CHINA, SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK IN. 
—The Chinese leaders of to-day seem to 
be in sympathy with Christianity, even 
where they do not avowedly profess it. 
Many of these leaders have been educated 
in Christian lands. 

At the 1910 convention of the World’s 
Sunday School Association, the London 
Sunday School Union, acting for the Brit- 
ish section of the World’s Association, 
assumed the responsibility for developing 
an organized Sunday-school movement in 
China. The Rev. E. G. Tewksbury was 
chosen as national secretary, commenc- 
ing his work in January, 1911. The 
organization of the China Sunday School 
Union followed a few months later. The 
Sunday-school committee of the China 


China, 8.8. Work in 


Centenary Conference of 1907 prepared a 
tentative constitution for this Union, and 
at present acts as its executive body. The 
so-called First National Convention of 
the Union was held in twelve sectional 
meetings at various places during the 
1913 visit of the World’s Commission 
tour party. 

Headquarters of the Union are at 
Shanghai. The territorial extent of 
China, each province having a population 
of many millions, makes imperative these 
sectional organizations, each with a 
trained secretary acting under the gen- 
eral secretary. Nine or more such organ- 
izations have been effected and one 
Chinese associate secretary for Fo-Kien 
has been employed. 

Four visits to China have been made 
by the American commissioners from the 
World’s Sunday School Association. 
During these visits, chiefly to South 
China, local organizations have been de- 
veloped and inspiration and_ practical 
help carried to the workers. The World’s 
Commission party of 1913 covered prin- 
cipally Central and North China. 

Sunday-school work in China neces- 
sarily differs from the more developed 
work in Christian lands and from much 
of the other Sunday-school work in the 
Orient, as follows: 

1. The Sunday school is but one of sev- 
eral agencies for Bible instruction. 
Among others may be mentioned, cur- 
riculum Bible study, as required by most 
Christian schools, the Y. M. C. A. Bible 
study, in the higher schools and colleges, 
station classes for inquirers and cate- 
chumens, and evening Bible study classes. 

2. It is composed in large proportion 
of students. Most organized Sunday 
schools in China have for their nucleus, 
and also for the bulk of their member- 
ship, pupils from day and _ boarding 
schools. No large proportion of the total 
church membership is found in the Sun- 
day school. There are Sunday schools 
for purely heathen children, aside from 
these Christian day schools. Secular 
education has not yet been made com- 
pulsory by the government of China and 
village Christian day schools are a most 
common feature of mission work, 

3. Grading is limited usually to classes 
for children and those for men and wom- 
en. Young people in their teens are not 


244 




























~. 


China, S. 8. Work in 


found in any large number in the ordi- 
nary Sunday school, except in stations 
where there are _boarding schools or 
higher educational institutions. Grad- 
ing, based upon the physical and intel- 
lectual development of those who other- 
wise could be taught in the same grade 
is complicated by differences in Bible 
knowledge and in the ability to read. 

4, The Sunday-school teachers are 
largely from those who are giving their 
whole time to Christian work. In gen- 
eral, the teaching force of the organized 
Sunday school consists of missionaries, 
Chinese men and women workers in the 
regular employ of the mission school or 
church, and the teachers and older stu- 
dents in the schools, ‘The lay member- 
ship as yet probably furnishes but a very 
small proportion of the Sunday-school 
teachers. However, by employing stu- 
dents in teaching small groups of chil- 
dren there is developing in many educa- 
tional centers in China a body of young 
men and women who will constitute an 
increasing volunteer force for teaching 
service, 

5. The Sunday school is not yet fully 
naturalized, although there is practically 
no antagonism now to the teaching of the 
Sunday school—the problem is to care 
for this movement. Its purpose and plan 
are not fully understood in China. 
Where careful supervision is withdrawn, 
especially in country districts where the 
bulk of the work lies, and where the 
pastor is the superintendent, the schools’ 
are in danger of having but little to dit 
ferentiate them from the preaching sery-| 
ice. Mr. P. S. Yi of Changhai, says: 
“The Sunday school has a more impor- 
tant place in China than it has in Amer- 
ica or any other Christian nation . . . 
as a popular and easily accessible Bible 
institute.” | 

I. Sunday School. In general, the 
schools are poorly equipped. Very few 
have reference libraries in Chinese or 
English. These books are just being pro- 
duced by the China Sunday School 
Union. No Sunday school has a building 
specially designed for its purpose, with 
wall and relief maps, ete. Churches or 
rented rooms are the usual housing for 
the Sunday school, and there is but little: 
separation between the Primary Depart- 
ment and the main school. The new 


A 
A 
ae 

- 





China, S. 8. Work in 


China graded lessons with accompanying 
illustrations are serving a fine purpose in 
promoting interest. 

Ninety per cent of the lesson helps in 
use are the International Uniform Les- 
son series, and ten per cent are the new 
graded lessons of the Union. The China 
Sunday School Union issues over 60,000 
lesson helps for each Sunday, and about 
20,000 per Sunday are issued from other 
sources. The Union’s output has doubled 

In two years. These helps for the use of 
Chinese teachers will be greatly strength- 
ened by a supplement to the teachers’ 
quarterly, prepared by a Chinese for the 
‘Chinese. Many of the illustrations and 
‘notes translated from foreign lesson 
helps are not understood by the Chinese 
‘pupils. 
Beginners,’ Primary, and Junior les- 
‘sons adapted from the Keystone leaflets 
of the International Uniform Lesson 
series have been issued. There is an 
insistent demand for lessons for the In- 
termediate Department. These may be 
used in many educational institutions. 
The demand indicates the greater atten- 
tion being given to Sabbath Bible teach- 
ing. The China Sunday School Journal, 
in English, with lesson notes and general 
Sunday-school information and_high- 
grade material for the use of Sunday- 
school workers is edited by the general 
secretary. 

The length of the session is about an 
hour. The program includes the usual 
features of song, prayer, lesson reading, 
reviews, calling the roll, the secretary’s 
report, and reciting of Golden Text or 
other memory work. The chief feature 
of the Sunday-school service is the long 
summary of the lesson by the superin- 
tendent. Bibles are not yet generally in 
use in the schools, although many pupils 
have the New Testament, but many of 
the adults cannot read. The Scripture 
memory work of the Chinese children is 
remarkable. Seven girls in the Presby- 
terian girls’ school in Canton are said to 
have recited the entire New Testament 
from memory. The usual special days of 
the year, such as Christmas and Easter, 
are observed by these schools, 

II. The Pastor and His Work. The 
Minister is usually the Sunday-school 
superintendent, and is often a teacher as 
well, Many pastors have not had spe- 


245 


China, S. S. Work in 


cial training for Sunday-school service, 
but some of the seminaries are planning 
to correct this lack by the introduction 
of special courses in Sunday-school peda- 
gogy, psychology, and methods. While at 
present the preachers are usually the Sun- 
day-school superintendents, it is from the 
lay membership, and especially from 
Christian students that the future leader- 
ship will be drawn. The new correspond- 
ence specialization courses of the China 
Sunday School Union afford a splendid 
channel of training for superintendents 
and a number have received the first cer- 
tificates for this course. 

ITI. Teacher Training. In well de- 
veloped Sunday-school sections, such as 
the Fo-Kien province, the personnel of 
the teaching force is encouraging. For 
the training of Sunday-school teachers 
the China Sunday School Union has 
issued a special course of six books in 
English and Chinese: The Sunday School 
of To-morrow, by G. H. Archibald; The 
Primary Department, by Ethel J. Archi- 
bald; The Junior School, by G. H. Archi- 
bald; Teacher-Training with the Master 
Teacher, by C. S. Beardslee; Talks to the 
Trawming Class, by Hetty Lee; The Seven 
Laws of Teaching, by J. M. Gregory. 
The special gift of $1,000 from the 
World’s Sunday School Association has 
made it possible to issue these books. Cer- 
tificates of the China Sunday School 


‘Union are issued to those passing exam- 


ination upon the first book of the course, 
seals being added for each succeeding 
book mastered. 

Three summer schools of method have 
been held at Kuling and Peitaiho. The 
course covers six weeks, is conducted by 
the general secretary and select leaders, 
and is attended by Chinese Sunday-school 
workers and Bible teachers; also Sunday 
school institutes for Chinese workers have 
been held in many places, 

IV. Pupils. The Sunday-school pupils 
in China are also largely in attendance 
at the Christian day and boarding schools 
and are taught week day and Sunday by 
the same teacher. Home visitation by 
teachers is not usual. The social plans 
often include the annual school rally, but 
recreation, as such, has not entered largely 
into the plans for China. 

The proportion of homes that are prob- 
ably Christian varies decidedly in differ- 


China, S. 8S. Work in 


ent localities, Fo-Kien province, report- 
ing one tenth, Swatow, ninety per cent, 
others one half. The Sabbath is used as 
a day of labor and this hinders the Sun- 
day-school attendance of non-Christian 
children. Children of the Christian day 
schools usually attend the Sunday school, 
although in many cases they are obliged 
to work on Sunday. 

The question of reaching the home of 
the non-Christian Chinese through mis- 
sion Sunday schools and extension of the 
day schools is one of the most promising 
features of the work. These schools could 
be established without limit if there are 
means and workers. ODisused temple 
court yards are being offered for use for 
this purpose. At Kiukiang, Miss Hughes 
has 1,500 heathen children in five Sun- 
day schools in the city, and reports that 
the number could easily be increased to 
5,000 if she had the equipment. Grad- 
uates of the Bible school would be used as 
teachers. The Chinese are willing to help 
defray expenses of the primary day schools 
if the missionaries will open them and 
send a student as a teacher. 

V. Public Attitude Toward the Sun- 
day School. From the non-Christian 
teachers of the Confucian classics, natu- 
rally there would be opposition to an in- 
stitution which gives emphasis to the 
Christian Bible. The thoughtful Chinese 
leaders recognize the insufficiency of the 
Confucian classics to develop religious 
character, and at the present time Chris- 
tianity is welcomed as a solvent of many 
of China’s problems, (See China, Moral 
and Religious Education in; Non-Chris- 
tian Scriptures. ) 

In China the church has usually pre- 
ceded the Sunday school. While oppor- 
tunities for the extension of Christian 
work through new Sunday schools are al- 
most limitless, the missions have usually 
no funds for this, even if workers were 
available, but the Sunday school is recog- 
nized as essential to the church as a train- 
ing place for new converts in Bible truth, 
and it provides definite work for church 
members. Owing to the general poverty 
of the Chinese church, funds for Sun- 
_ day-school equipment and support must 
be supplemented from foreign sources. 
In many places the missionaries assist 
with their own funds. With adequate 
funds and literature, encouragement of 


246 


i 
. i" 
Christ as a Teacher 


the work by special secretarial supervi- 
sion, Chinese trained Bible teachers and 
workers, proper housing, etc., the results 
will be greatly increased. 

K. G. TEwWKSBURY. 


CHOICE.—Szx Motives, THE APPEAL | 


To, IN Reuicious EpucaTion; WILL, 
EDUCATION OF THE, | 


CHRIST AS A TEACHER.—The He- 
brews never became schoolmen, 
method of their teaching was incidental, 
rather than deliberate, intentional and sys- 
tematic. 
diligently unto thy children. Thou shalt 


The. 


“Thou shalt teach these words 





talk of them when thou sittest in thy 


house and when thou walkest by the way; 


when thou liest down and when thou risest 
up; thou shalt bind them for a sign upon 


thy hand and write them upon the door- 


. 


posts of thy house.” 


These familiar words from the Book of | 


Deuteronomy indicate the general method. 


Men were to go about their business intent 
upon living real lives and in the ordinary — 
course of action they were to make known | 


by word of mouth and by actual deed those 
principles which they had received at the 
hands of Jehovah their God. 

We have here an anticipation of the pre- 
vailing method of Jesus as a teacher. He 


was intensely social in his habit of life. | 


He came eating and drinking with such 


freedom of social contact that his enemies | 
accused him of being a gluttonous man 


and a wine bibber. 


| 





He talked with men 


in the fields as they sowed their grain, in | 
their boats as they fished, with the shep- 


herds as they guided and guarded the 
sheep, and with housewives as_ they 
wrought with the leaven and the meal. 
In the ordinary intercourse of every day 
life he delivered his message. He was 
about his Father’s business teaching the 
truth while he sat in the house and while 
he walked by the way. 

Like the healthy natural man he was he 
liked the outdoors. He gave his first ad- 
dress in the little synagogue at Nazareth. 
He then appeared in the larger Temple at 
Jerusalem. But when he came to give his 
charter day address in what is called 
“The Sermon on the Mount” announcing 


those fundamental principles which would 


: 
| 
| 


| 


underlie the establishment of his kingdom, — 


he was standing in a pulpit, not made with 


Christ as a Teacher 


hands, out under the open sky. He en- 
Jarged his audience room as his vision 
widened. 

Tle went out-of-doors because the people 
were there, the great main movements of 
life were there. He was not content to 
remain apart teaching a small esoteric 
circle, but allowing the great common in- 
terests of human existence to go untaught, 
unblessed by the message he brought. 
And when the people did not come to him, 
he went to them. 

He may have gone out-of-doors also be- 
cause his breadth of view and his sense 
of reality made him feel more at home in 
the open than in some place walled in by 
the hand of man. It is harder for any 
speaker to indulge in bombast and fustian, 
exaggeration and make-believe in the open 
—the trees and the stars rebuke him. 
And Jesus, the apostle of reality, found in 
the simple every day realities of the open 
air that which was congenial. The place 
and manner of his teaching made it well 
nigh inevitable that his teaching should 
be incidental and occasional rather than 
systematic. 

I. His teaching was eminently personal. 
He came to save the race, but he made the 
beginnings of a world movement by chang- 
ing the lives of individuals. He was not 
a teacher of the science of sociology or of 
economics or of ethics though he touched 
upon the values contemplated by all these 
lines of inquiry—he dealt primarily with 
the person, seeking to instruct and renew 
his life. 

He was as fond of personal conversation 
as was Socrates. He took a wider range, 
for the Athenian sage gave most of his 
time to the more or less cultivated people 
of the city of Athens. The conversations 
of Jesus with Nicodemus, a well-to-do, 
learned theologian, and with the poor 
blind beggar, with Nathanael, a man of 
singular purity, and with the woman of 
Samaria who had been living somewhat 
promiscuously with seven different men, 
with Mary and Martha, choice and gener- 
ous in their mode of life, and with Zac- 
cheus, a thieving, stingy tax collector, with 
Simon, the respectable Pharisee who gave 
him a dinner, and with the woman of the 
street who crept in at the end of the feast 
—these and many other personal conver- 
Sations recorded at considerable length 
indicate what method of teaching on the 


247 


Christ as a Teacher 


part of Christ most impressed his bio- 
graphers. 

He had a deep sense of the worth of 
the individual. <A political aggregation 
like the Roman Empire, an army contain- 
ing a thousand legions of men, a mass of 
wealth that would buy the whole world, 
never impressed the mind of Christ as 
did the possibilities of an individual life. 
What is there that a man could afford ta 
give in exchange for the real worth of his 
own life? One sheep out of a hundred, 
one coin out of ten, if lost must be found, 
though the others are all safe and sure. 

His instruction was personal rather 
than abstract in that he practiced what 
he preached. In him the word of truth 
was made flesh and dwelt among men, full 
of grace and truth. He bade his followers 
love their enemies and pray for those who 
despitefully used them—and then he loved 
his enemies and prayed for them even 
though they killed him. 

He was bold enough to put himself for- 
ward as the perfect embodiment of his 
teachings. “I am the truth.” “TI do al- 
ways those things that please the Father.” 
“He that followeth me shall not walk in 
darkness, but shall have the light of life.” 

Il. He was pictorial in the whole 
method of his teaching. “Ye are the salt 
of the earth,” the saving principle in it. 
“Ye are the light of the world”—the guid- 
ing element in society. “Do men gather 
grapes of thorns’”—the useful from the 
hurtful? “I'he kingdom of heaven is like 
yeast.” ‘New wine must be put in new 
wineskins”—the new fermenting expand- 
ing truths in channels of conveyance and 
expression suited to their character. 
There are scores and scores of these pic- 
torial statements. 

The Orientals are as fond of stories and 
pictures as children. They have shown no 
great turn for scientific or philosophic 
discussion, but they have seen visions and 
dreamed dreams. The goal of endeavor 
as they pictured it was not a state of char- 
acter as with us—it was a city, another 
and a new Jerusalem, with golden streets 
and pearly gates, with the kings of the 
earth, the ruling forces of society, bring- 
ing their glory and honor into it. The 
story of the young man going into a far 
country and by wrong living meeting with 
reverses until he was reduced to the low 
level of a swine herd; the story of the bril- 


Christ as a Teacher 


liant wedding with the ten lamp-bearing 
bridesmaids, five of them sensible and 
five silly; the picture of the superb feast 
refused by the wicked and short-sighted 
and then enjoyed by the less fortunate to 
whom invitations had come in the high- 
ways and the hedges—all these concrete 
pictures of spiritual truth would appeal 
much more powerfully to the Hebrews 
than would the wisest chapters in Herbert 
Spencer’s Data of Hthics or the profound- 
est reasoning in Calvin’s Institutes. 

The story, the parable, the allegory was 
the leading form in which his truth was 
conveyed. There are between thirty and 
forty of these parables contained in the 
brief compass of the Synoptic Gospels. 
The truth is thereby made interesting and 
effective even to a more intellectual age 
like our own. The parable of the Good 
Samaritan has been more fruitful a thou- 
sand times over in kindling kindly im- 
pulse than any abstract discussion of the 
standing obligation of the strong to render 
humane service to the needy. 

The pictorial sometimes became para- 
doxical. We may say without irreverence 
that Jesus shared in the Oriental love of 
saying striking things in order to make 
his appeal effective. The unusual is the 
more easily remembered. “He that saveth 
his life shall lose it” is much more strik- 
ing than the statement that only as a man 
gives his life to useful service does he de- 
velop and retain its true values. “It is 
easier for a camel to pass through the eye 
of a needle than for a rich man to enter 
the kingdom of heaven” is more striking 
than to say that it is exceedingly difficult 
to retain and administer large fortunes in 
a thoroughly Christian way. 

When Jesus said “Resist not evil, 
“If a man smite thee on the one cheek 
turn the other,” “If any man take away 
thy coat let him have thy cloak also,” he 
did not intend evidently that these bold 
paradoxes should be observed literally. 
He meant, as Dr. William Newton Clarke 
pointed out in his last book, that every 
man was to find his rule of action in the 
best instincts of his own nature and not 
allow some unworthy rule to be imposed 
upon him by the evil actions of others. 
Rather than strike back vindictively he 
would suffer a second blow. And Jesus 
put this noble principle of conduct in 
these bold paradoxes. His main method 


33 


248 


Christ as a Teacher 


was illustrative as he taught them many 
things in pictures. 

III. He taught principles rather than 
rules. 'The Scribes and Pharisees were 
rule-makers and rule-keepers. They had 
fallen into a peddling, pelting way of us- 
ing the sublime principles of Scripture in 
such fashion as to make them minute and 
petty. They had loaded the original com- 
mands with countless traditions and am- 
plifications grievous to be borne. 

In place of the numberless details pre- 
scribed in regard to a proper observance 
of the Sabbath, Jesus announced a few 
vital principles. “The Sabbath was made 
for man”—because he needed it. It was 
made particularly for those interests in a 
man’s life which suffer neglect during the 
other six days. “The Son of Man is Lord 
of the Sabbath day.” The perfect hu- 
manity manifested in the character of the 
Son of Man is to furnish the determining 
principle in Sabbath observance. We are 
to admit or to exclude activities from the 
sacred hours of the Sabbath as they bear 
upon the development of that perfect 
humanity. 

“Whatsoever”—in all those situations 
which could not be contemplated and pro- 
vided for in a set of rules even though they 
might fill all the volumes of the Britan- 
nica—“whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you do ye even so to them.” 
Here we have a principle rather than a 
Tule. 

“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self’—taking his interests into consid- 
eration not as excluding your own but as 
included with them in that broader moral 
outlook characteristic of the right minded, 
honest-hearted man. Here is no rule pre- 
scribing the details of conduct in some’ 


particular situation but a principle capa-| 


ble of universal application. His habit 
of teaching principles rather than pre- 
scribing rules is one reason why the influ- 
ence of Jesus as a teacher is permanent. | 
The rule may be quickly superseded by a 
shift in circumstances but the vital pr 
ciple abides. 

IV. The teaching of Jesus was positive | 
rather than negative. The Old Testament 
in its Ten Commandments said, “Thou 
shalt not.” The New Testament has two 
great commandments and they are both 
positive. The Beatitudes are all positive. 
Blessed are the men who are something— 


| 






thrist as a Teacher 


aerciful, gentle, peaceable, pure in heart. 
“he test of discipleship was not absten- 
ion from certain evils—it was a positive 
est. “By this shall all men know that 
e are my disciples if ye love one an- 
ther.” 

The positive quality in Christ’s teaching 
adicates the type of good man the Master 
ad it in mind to produce. He was not 
0 be a cloistered saint who had run away 
rom the world to escape the evil of it, 
ut an active, virile, robust type of man 
tho had overcome evil by the militant 
‘oodness of his life. 
| The contrast between the varying types 
£ goodness in John the Baptist and in 
‘esus is noted in the Gospels. The fore- 
| ane was a good man of the negative 
ind separatist type. His saintliness de- 
jaanded for its exercise that it be taken 
)f£ into the desert to live on locusts and 
ild honey quite apart from the normal 
aterests and occupations of human exist- 
mee. The Son of Man came eating and 
‘rinking, building his ideals into an actual 
juman order; he was a concrete rather 
man an abstract idealist. Wherefore 
hough among them born of women up to 
‘hat time there had not arisen a greater 
than John the Baptist, he that is blest 
fter the method and according to the 
pirit of the kingdom is greater than John. 








| : ‘‘The common problem, 

| Yours, mine, everyone’s is not to fanc 

| What were fair in life, provided it sould be, 
| But finding first what may be, then find, 

; How to make that fair, up to our means.” 


| The fact that the method of Jesus was 
largely personal, occasional, incidental 
‘adicates that in the letter of it we may 
snd incompleteness. There is very little 
a his reported sayings which bears on 
jolitical duties. The men he addressed 
yere practically without political rights 
nd privileges. While the principles of 
‘ight political action may readily be de- 
vuced from the body of Christ’s teaching, 
here is very little specific instruction 
duching our obligations as citizens. 

| V. It is perfectly clear that He would 
ave us regard the spirit rather than the 
otter of what he taught. The letter would 
ften kill the value of a saying where the 
pirit suggested in it will give it life. 
Vhen Jesus said “Give to every one that 
sketh thee,” he was not proposing a fixed 








249 


Christian Church 


rule of philanthropic effort, but rather 
suggesting a disposition to be cultivated 
and maintained unbrokenly. When he 
directed men to cut off right hands and 
pluck out right eyes rather than retain 
those members as occasions of stumbling 
and offense, he was indicating the spirit 
in which all our members are to be re- 
garded. It were better for a man to pluck 
out his eyes and grope with the blind 
rather than use them for evil. It were 
better for him to cut off his feet and sit 
down for the rest of his days than to walk 
with springing step in paths of evil. As 
between the degradation of any faculty by 
wrong use and the mutilation of the body 
by the destruction of that member, mutila- 
tion every time! It is better to enter into 
life maimed than not to enter at all. But 
beyond that “better” would be the “best” 
form of action, the consecration of the 
faculty to right use so that a man might 
enter into life not maimed but whole and 
sound. 

The main purpose of Christ’s teaching 
seems not to have been to furnish us a 
complete and exhaustive code of conduct 
or even a systematic statement of religious 
doctrine. He taught that he might create, 
mature and direct a body of Christian 1m- 
pulse which would find expression in all 
the nobler forms of conduct and in the 
highest lines of service. And to this end 
the teaching which was personal and pic- 
torial, the teaching of principles and pos- 
itive precepts seemed best adapted. 

C. R. Brown. 


CHRISTIAN CHURCH, SUNDAY- 
SCHOOL WORK OF THE.—Connected 
with the organization of the Christian de- 


nomination (Christian Connection) are a 


few names that have become historic, not 
to say famous. One is James O’Kelly of 
Virginia. Another Rice Haggard, who in 
a conference met in the interests of Chris- 
tian liberty and to hear a report of a com- 
mittee appointed to formulate a church 
government, stood with open New Testa- 
ment in hand and said: “Brethren, this is 
a sufficient rule of faith and practice, and 
by it we are to know that the disciples 
were called Christians, and I move that 
henceforth and forever the followers of 
Christ be known as Christians simply.” 
The motion was carried without a dissent, 
and here, in 1794, began the movement 


Christian Church 


that culminated in the organization of the 
“Christian Church” of America. 

Another name is Abner Jones of New 
England, who took as his guiding prin- 
ciple—“I will have nothing but for which 
I can bring a ‘thus saith the Lord,’ and, 
‘thus it is written.” Mr. Jones organized 
a church in Linden, Vermont, in 1801. 
Associated with Abner Jones was Elias 
Smith of Portsmouth, N. H., who in 1802 
came to believe that Christ’s followers 
should have no name but Christians. In 
Kentucky two names connected with the 
rise of the Christian denomination are 
Barton W. Stone and David Purviance. 
Churches were organized in Virginia and 
the Carolinas by O’Kelly and his associ- 
ates, in New England by Jones, Smith and 
their associates, and in Kentucky by 
Stone, Purviance and their associates. Out 
of these grew the Christian denomina- 
tions, which were organized into the Gen- 
eral or United States Conference in 1820, 
which ultimately became known as the 
Christian denomination. 

For a number of years the denomination 
was not specially active in the work of 
religious education further than that 
which could be promoted through pulpit, 
religious press, and pastoral ministrations. 
At first the denomination was inclined to 
hold aloof from Sunday-school work, but 
as early as 1826 a Sunday school was or- 
ganized in the Christian Church of Kit- 
tery, Maine. Before 1830 other churches 
had organized Sunday schools and during 
the thirties a number of churches had 
taken up the work and Sunday schools 
were organized. In 1848 the Christians 
reported forty schools in New England. 
The work having started in Atlantic coast 
cities it worked westward and southward. 
In 1835 the ministry instead of speaking 
against the Sunday school, as in former 
days, began to encourage the work of organ- 
ization and throughout the territory of the 
denomination churches were urged to 
adopt Sunday schools. Each school, like 
the church under whose auspices it was 
organized, was independent in its govern- 
ment. 

The following will give some idea as to 
the early method of conducting Sunday 
schools in the Christian Church. In re- 
sponse to the writer’s request Rev. Thomas 
Holmes, D.D., wrote: “My recollections of 
my first Sunday-school experiences are 


250 


(j 


Christian Church 
very vivid, and very interesting to me, 
They commence about 1830. I know 
nothing about organizers, but the method 
of the school of which I was a member can 
never be forgotten. It was in a count 
school house. Classes were formed acco 
ing to ages of members. Each member 
was instructed to commit as many Verses 
as possible during the week, and the 
teacher heard each recite the verses 
learned, and gave credit for the number 
recited. EKach pupil selected his or her 
lesson from any portion of the Bible pre- 
ferred. Psalms and Proverbs were fre- 
quently chosen because the verses were 
short. I chose the New Testament. My 
first lesson, I remember, was the third 
chapter of Matthew. I remember reciting 
also at one lesson the twenty-fifth chapter 
of Matthew, forty-six verses. The pupil 
soon had large portions of the Bible at 
tongue’s end and they were ready for use 
during all the rest of his life, for they 
were seldom forgotten.” ; pa 
Not until 1850 did the schools assume’ 
a form of general organization. During 
the forties conferences organized the work 
and had reports given at their annual ses- 
sions. This was about the time of the ear-| 
liest mention of Sunday-school work in 
the organic law of the denomination. In 
1878 the work took on a more definite! 
phase. The secretary, though unable to! 
secure replies from the Sunday schools in| 
general estimated the number of schools) 
at about eight hundred, and their total 
membership at forty-one thousand. : 
For a number of years the schools pa- 
tronized other publishing houses for their 
Sunday-school papers, but in 1865 The 
Sunday School Herald was founded and 
it, together with the Junior Herald, pub-| 
lished by the Christian Publishing Asso-| 
ciation, at Dayton, Ohio, continues t¢ 
supply the needs of the Sunday schools. 
In 1882 the Teachers Guide and Scholars 
Help was published under the editorship! 
of A. W. Coran. Later the Intermediate 
Quarterly was issued and the Teachers, 
Guide changed to the Bible Class Quar- 
terly. During the quadrennium from 
1906 to 1910, under the editorship of 
S. Q. Helfenstein, the Junior Quarterly 
was begun. In 1911 the Sunday-schoo. | 
Teachers and Officers Journal was founded 
under the editorship of Hermon Eldredge 
The five quarterlies that reach the 










Christian Endeavor Society 


schools of this denomination from its own 
press are the Teachers and Officers 
Journal, Bible Class Quarterly, Interme- 
diate Quarterly, Junior Quarterly, and 
Iuttle Teacher. In general the schools 
seem satisfied with their denominational 
literature. Some of the schools are using 
the graded series, which are procured from 
other publishing houses. 

- At present the Sunday-school work is 
in a flourishing condition, the administra- 
tion being under a corps of officers and 
teachers. Lfficiency is sought through 
‘eare in the selection of competent teach- 
ers; and many schools have teacher-train- 
‘ing work and the front line standard. Co- 
‘operation is accomplished through the 
assistance of the Sunday School Board, 
with its general secretary and many field 
‘or conference secretaries. 

| From the Sunday schools largely come 
the recruits of the church, and those 
trained in Sunday school make the best 
workers. Both the conferences and the 
‘American Christian Convention are giv- 
ing special attention, and are putting 
forth extra effort, to make the Sunday 
school the efficient agency of the church in 
training the young and building Christian 
character, and the effort is not without en- 
eouraging results. The schools are grow- 
ing in numbers, efficiency and missionary 


spirit. S. Q. HELFENSTEIN. 





, CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR SOCIETY.— 
Srr Youne Propue’s Society oF CHRIs- 
TIAN ENDEAVOR. 


CHRISTIAN FLAG.—Srr Fuacs or 
‘THE S. S. 


| CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH, SUN- 
DAY-SCHOOL WORK OF THE.—Pupils 
may be received in the Sunday-school 
tlasses of any Church of Christ, Scientist, 
ap to the age of twenty years. No pupil, 
lowever, shall remain in the Sunday 
school after reaching the age of twenty. 
The Church Manual, comprising the By- 
Laws or Organic Law of Christian Science 
Jhurches, treats of the Sunday school 
imder the general head of Church Serv- 
ces. Here, in Section 1 of Article XX, 
ire to be found the regulations named 
wbove, controlling the admission of pupils 
to the Sunday school. The teaching of 
Y 


| 
a 
} 
| 


> 


201 


Christian Science Church 


the children is provided for in Section 2 
of Article XX, which reads: 

“The Sabbath school children shall be 
taught the Scriptures, and they shall be 
instructed according to their understand- 
ing or ability to grasp the simpler mean- 
ings of the divine Principle that they are 
taught.” 

Then follows explicit direction respect- 
ing the subject for lessons. The first les- 
sons of the children, the Manual provides, 
shall be the Ten Commandments, the 
Lord’s Prayer and its spiritual interpre- 
tation as found in the Christian Science 
textbook, Science and Health with Key to 
the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, and 
the Sermon on the Mount. The next les- 
sons consist of such questions and an- 
swers as are adapted to a juvenile class, 
and may be found in the Christian Science 
Quarterly Bible Lessons read in Church 
Services. 

The children are taught the meaning 
of the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s 
Prayer and its spiritual interpretation, 
and the Beatitudes. With these spiritual 
fundamentals provided, the teaching has 
for its purpose so to elucidate their import . 
by means of practical illustrations and 
everyday examples of love, obedience, and 
good that the children will catch their 
spirit, understand them, and as a result be 
genuinely interested in them. It is appar- 
ent that a child may be taught the words, 
“Thou shalt have no other gods before 
me,” with comparative ease. But to teach 
a child the meaning of that Command- 
ment so thoroughly that he can and will 
prove in his living that he actually has no 
other gods before God, divine Life, Truth, 
Love, is the special privilege of the Sun- 
day-school teacher. The words of Jesus, 
“T am the way, the truth, and the life: no 
man cometh unto the Father but by me,” 
leave those intrusted with the responsi- 
bility of teaching in no doubt as to the 
way to teach. As stated in Science and 
Health, “Jesus was ‘the way’; that is, he 
marked the way for all men” (p. 46). 
Clearly, then, what Jesus taught respect- 
ing the truth underlying our manner of 
living is the “way” the children should 
be taught. 

Consideration is given to the fact that 
some of the older children may not re- 
main in the Sunday school more than a 
year. Effort is therefore made to see that 


Christian Science Church 


they are equipped with a knowledge of the 
spiritual interpretation of Scripture, and 
to prepare them not only to read the Bible 
intelligently, but, with its aid, to meet 
and master the problems that come up in 
their daily experience. “The entire pur- 
pose of true education,” Mrs. Eddy writes, 
‘is to make one not only know the truth 
but live it—enjoy doing rightly—and not 
work in the sunshine and run away in the 
storm—but work midst clouds of wrong, 
injustice, envy, hate; and wait on God, the 
strong deliverer, who will reward right- 
eousness and punish iniquity.” (Chris- 
tian Science Sentinel, October 31, 1903.) 

Regarding teachers, the Christian 
Science Leader wrote, 

“Tt is a joy to know that they who are 
faithful over foundational trusts such as 
the Christian education of the dear chil- 
dren, reap the reward of rightness, rise in 
the scale of being, and realize at last their 
Master’s promise, ‘And they shall all be 
taught of God.’” (Ibid., November 19th, 
1904). 

No provision is made for the “entertain- 
ment” of Sunday-school children. The 
exercises are simple and are presided over 
by a superintendent. ‘This officer is ap- 
pointed by the governing board of the in- 
dividual church of which he is a member. 
It is deemed best in the interests of the 
Sunday school that none except the of- 
ficers, teachers, and pupils attend the Sun- 
day-school exercises. The church polity 
being democratic, the general affairs of 
the Sunday school are administered by 
each church separately. The officers usu- 
ally include a secretary or an assistant 
superintendent, or both, and a treasurer 
to aid the presiding officer. Experience 
seems to point the wisdom of arranging 
for small classes—a teacher for six to 
twelve children. Exceptions to this plan 
are frequent, however. 

In June, 1913, there were approxi- 
mately 1450 church organizations of the 
Christian Science denomination. These, 
with few exceptions, maintain Sunday 
schools as an integral part of their serv- 
ices. The proportion of Sunday-school 
pupils to the attendance upon church 
services appears to vary in different parts 
of the world, as it does in sections of this 
country. Numbers are not used in de- 
termining the importance and growth of 
this Sunday-school work. Consequently 


252 


Christian Year 


no figures are available upon which to base 

an estimate of the numerical strength of 

the Christian Science Sunday schools. 
H. C. WILson. 


CHRISTIAN YEAR.—Three principles 
enter into the formation of the Church 
calendar; first, the calendar is designed 
to commemorate the chief events of the 
Incarnation; secondly, to commemorate 
those more intimately connected with our 
Blessed Lord in his life and in the plant- 
ing of the Church; thirdly, to keep a 
memorial of local saints, martyrs, doctors 
of the faith and heroes and leaders of the 
world. These principles were not recog- 
nized, of course, at the beginning. ‘The 
Church followed the general principle of 
treating the life of Christ in a series of 
commemorations. These, in the Epis- 
copal calendar, do not follow the order 
of their original establishment. aster 
was necessarily the first in observance, 
But out of this others grew naturally and 
inevitably. 

I. The Chief Seasons and Holy Days.— 
1. Christmas and Epiphany were orig- 
inally one festival commemorative of 
the Nativity of our Lord. It was early 
believed that the life of Christ, from his 
conception to his death, lasted an exact 
number of years. Hippolytus (200 A. D.) 
fixed upon March 25th for the Annuncia- 
tion because he calculated that the Cruci- 
fixion took place on that day. He there-) 
fore settled upon December 25th, as the 
date of the Nativity. Another factor in| 
the choice of December 25th, is the 
heathen festival of the sun on the same | 
day. In the fourth century the Christmas 
festival began to be commonly observed, 
and owing to an uncertainty of dates, it 
is not impossible that the Church availed 
herself of this coincidence in order to 
Christianize the ancient pagan feast. 
(See Christmas, Observance of.) ; 

Epiphany, January 6th, was early se- 
lected as the date of our Lord’s Baptism; 
and the tradition became current that he 
was baptized on his thirtieth birthday, 
thus his physical and spiritual birth syn-| 
chronizing. This festival became thus, 
one of the two great days for the admin- 
istration of baptism. It was not until’ 
the fourth century that December 25th 
came into general observance as Christmas 
Day. The separation of the day of the 


| 








Nativity from that of Epiphany, the day 
of the baptism, may have been furthered 
by the recognition of the Incarnation as 
having been effected at his birth, and 
not by the rite of his baptism. Thus 
the establishment of Christmas became 
the substantial affirmation of the actuality 
of the Incarnation. He was born, he be- 
came flesh, “He was incarnate by the 
Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was 
‘made man.” 

2. The Presentation of Christ, and the 
Annunciation B. V. M. The former 
feast was not observed before the sixth 
century; and no trace of the latter is 
found in the first four centuries. The 
Collect for this latter festival is of sin- 
gular beauty. It does not refer to the 
‘Blessed Virgin Mary save by implication 
‘in the words “by the message of an 
Angel.” In the old Sarum use of the 
‘English Church this day was known as 
/“Our Lord’s Annunciation.” 'The present 
|name was later authorized, and the title 
|“Lady Day,” came into popular use, 
)marking the increasing reverence for the 
| Mother of our Lord. 

The Collect comes from the Sacrament- 
ary of Gelasius (about 490) but its writer 
is unknown. No other Collect furnishes a 
finer illustration of the literary genius 
that produced these brief and wonderful 
prayers. This Collect is familiar to all 
because it forms part of the memorial of 
the Departed said at close of compline, 
and is used also after other services. 

3. Lent preceded Easter, originally, as 
the fast of preparation both for Easter, 
-and for the Sacrament of Holy Baptism 
which was on that day administered. The 
_word itself is of Anglo-Saxon origin, 
meaning “the lengthening days.” The 
atin name was Quadragesima, 1. e., the 
fast of forty days. The Sundays in Lent 
| are not fast days. The ancient ceremo- 
nial for Ash Wednesday was conducted in 
the church. Penitents presented them- 
Selves inside the door of the church. The 

Penitential Psalms were chanted, fol- 
lowed by a general confession, after 
which the bishop sprinkled ashes upon 
them, saying: “Remember, man, that dust 
thou art, and unto dust thou shalt re- 
tum!?—then “Break thine heart, for a 
humbled heart God does not despise ! 1? 
They were then sent from the church, or 
Were directed to a secluded part reserved 









y 
} 








Christian Year 253 Christian Year 


for them, till Maundy Thursday, when 
they received absolution, and were re- 
stored to Christian privileges. 

4. Palm Sunday. This was one of the 
ancient holy days. Its observance is for- 
tunately being revived. For those who de- 
sire to do this nothing could be more fit- 
ting than the Office of Blessing the Palms 
that come down to us from the old Sarum 
use. ‘This service may be held before the 
early celebration, or it may be made a 
separate and most impressive service, in 
place of the regular Sunday-school ses- 
sion. The Sarum Office will be found to 
appeal with peculiar power to the young, 
and it should be ordered with careful at- 
tention to every detail. 

5. Good Friday. The observance of 
Good Friday began, we may believe, in the 
Apostolic Age. Wednesday and Friday 
came to be used as the weekly fasting 
days, suggested probably by the Jewish 
custom. of fasting twice in the week, Mon- 
day and Thursday. (Luke 18:12.) But 
attention is here called to the fact that 
very largely children have been left out of 
consideration in the modern use of Good 
Friday. It is a day devoted to grown 
people. There would seem to be ample 
reason for gathering the children for a 
service at some time during the three 
hours. Such a service need not last more 
than an hour—from two o’clock to three. 
Simple hymns and prayers, the telling of 
the story, and as they leave the church, the 
distribution, of a memorial card, form a 
fitting service. 

6. Haster. The Apostles continued to 
observe the Passover, but this would not 
naturally be the case with Gentile Chris- 
tians. The words of St. Paul (I Cor. 
5:7) seem to suggest an additional reason 
for his own keeping of the Jewish Pass- 
over, and also a very significant reason 
why Gentile Christians might celebrate 
the Lord’s Supper at that same time with 
more than ordinary interest and solem- 
nity. But there is no mention of Easter 
in Justin Martyr’s writings nor by other 
early Fathers. Yet St. Polycarp (69-155 
A. D.) Bishop of Smyrna, gave St. John 
as his authority for keeping Easter. He 
was still a young man when the Great 
Apostle died, and this carries one back to 
the very Apostolic Age. (See Easter, Ob- 
servance of.) 

7. Ascension Day. The observance of 


Christian Year 


this feast only goes back to the fourth 
century. St. Augustine speaks of it as of 
apostolic origin, and its observance was in 
his day universal. This is not the case at 
the present time. The day falls always 
in midweek, and receives more than the 
ordinary neglect of a busy age. Its name, 
Holy Thursday, is common in the English 
and American churches. 

8. Pentecost. In the first four centuries 
Pentecost meant: (1) The name of the 
50th day after Easter, and also (2) the 
name of the whole season. Acts 2:1; 
20:16; and I Cor. 1:6-8 use the word in 
the first sense. Irenzeus, Bishop of Lyons, 
France, in the. second century observed 
this feast. He was born in Smyrna and 
remembered to have heard the preaching 
of Polycarp, who died in 155 A. D. and he 
frequently mentions having met those who 
had known St. John the Apostle. 

The Octave of Pentecost is Trinity 
Sunday, and is- set apart as a distinct 
festival in honor of the Holy Trinity. 
Our name for Pentecost is Whitsunday, 
from pfingsten, German for fifty. Others 
derive it from White Sunday, so called 
because of the white robes worn by those 
baptized on the Eve of the Feast. 

9. Trinity Sunday. The earliest notice 
of this festival in England is in 1162 A. 
D. In the old diocese of Sarum (Salis- 
bury) they numbered the Sundays as 
“after Trinity,” while, in the Roman and 
Greek churches, these are numbered from 
Pentecost. It is one of the noblest of 
days, and has a singular elevation as the 
Festival of God. The Collect dates from 
the Sacramentary of Gregory the Great 
(540-604 A. D.), who sent St. Augustine 
to England (596) and who organized 
other missionary enterprises, and revised 
and improved the liturgy and music of 
the Church. This prayer may have been, 
however, the composition of Pope Gelasius 
(492-496) whose Sacramentary Gregory 
revised and enlarged. 

10. Ember Days. These come at four 
seasons, and are called the Fasts of the 
Four Seasons. The word Hmber is abbre- 
viated from Quatember (Latin, Quatuor 
temporum). Some trace their use back to 
apostolic times. The ancient Jewish 
Church observed fasts on the 4th, 5th, 
7th and 10th months. These Ember Days 
fall on the Wednesday, Friday and Satur- 
day after: the Ist Sunday in Lent, Whit- 


254 


Christian Year , 


sunday, September 14th, and December 
13th, representing, broadly, the four sea- 
sons. In the early Church instead of 
these fixed dates, the days varied accord- 
ing to local circumstances in different 
places. The present dates appear to have 
been fixed about the eleventh century. 

11. The Rogation Days. These are the 
three days fast preceding Ascension Day. 
The originator of this fast and of the pro- 
cessional ' litanies used during it, was 
Claudius Memertus, Bishop of Vienne, 
in France, in the fifth century, at a time 
of earthquake and other calamities. 
These days with their litanies became 
widely used, and extended into England, 
and finally to Milan and Rome, about the 
ninth century. Charlemagne the Great is 
said to have marched with bare feet in 
these solemn processions. 

12. Feasts and Fasts. The table of 
these will be found in the Prayer Book, p. 
XXIV. On looking over this table it will 
be seen that the Church Year falls into 
two divisions. Barry names thus the 
Festal, from Advent to Trinity, and the 
non-Festal from Trinity to Advent. This 
is only partially correct. Into the first 
division come not only the great festivals 
but also the great fasts, while in the 
second come the Saints’ Days, the Feast of 
the Transfiguration and the Festival of 
the Holy Angels. 

13. Octaves. Certain of the more im- 
portant festivals continue for eight days. 
The eighth day is called the Octave. 
Through the whole Octave the Collect for 
the feast will be said at all services. 
These festivals are marked by the use of — 
proper Prefaces—Christmas, Easter, As- 
cension, and Whitsunday. The Preface 
for Whitsunday is ordered to be used only 
six days after that festival, because the 
seventh, viz., the Octave of Whitsun- 
day, would be Trinity Sunday, which has 
a Preface of its own. The first two days 
of the Octave of Easter and Whitsunday 
are Holy Days of Obligation. | 

II. Saints’ Days. 1. In the Roman Bre- 
viary there are the names of no less than 
278 saints, whose names, either in sepa- 
rate days, or by commemoration, have 
places in the calendar. In the Eastern 


and English churches names would find 
place owing to local fame and interest. 
This was the condition at the time of the 


English reformation, and led to a neces- 


a 








Christian Year 


sary revision. The first Prayer Book of 
1549, presented a very drastic revision, 
retaining only one class of Saints’ Days, 
the present “Red Letter Days,’ 1. ¢., 
days which have their own Collects, Epis- 
tles and Gospels. The next Prayer Book 
(1552) introduced again “Black Letter 
Days,” 1. e., days for which Collects, 
Epistles, Gospels, were not provided. The 
later revision of 1661 left the present 
ealendar of the English Church. In- 
cluding Sundays, there are 149 festivals 
in the English calendar. Of these 54 are 
festivals on which commemoration is 
made of saints and confessors not men- 
tioned in the Bible. Twenty of these are 
martyrs in the age of persecution, and 
eleven are sacred to great defenders of the 
‘Faith, like St. Augustine and Saints of 
France showing the old connection be- 
‘tween France and England. 

2. The American Calendar. 
Prayer Book p. XXIV.) 

This is identical with the correspond- 
ing one in-the English Book with the ex- 
ception of the addition of the Feast of 
the Transfiguration. But the American 
calendar leaves out the so-called Black- 
Letter Days. The Eastern Church cal- 
endar is remarkable as compared with 
those of the West, for containing, in addi- 
tion to saints of Christian history, the 
names of eighteen Old Testament saints, 
one day sacred to the Seven Maccabean 
Heroes, and one in honor of Zacharias, 
father of St. John the Baptist. 

3. The question arises, What is the pur- 
pose for which the Christian Year calendar 
exists? Many of the saints commemo- 
tated in the Roman calendar are of little 
or no general interest. Just why they find 
a place it is difficult to understand. The 
same is also true of the English, though 
in far less degree. On the other hand it 
is to be remembered that one of the great- 
est values of the Christian Year is its 
cultivation of the historic sense by the 
constant commemoration of past events 
and characters, and its fostering of devo- 
tion and faith. Every church would do 
well to have its own sacred and memorable 
names which could be added to some such 
broad and comprehensive calendar as that 
contained in the American Book of Com- 
mon Prayer. 

The Christian Calendar in 400 A. D. 
A Recapitulation. 1. The Lord’s Day was 


(See 


255 


Christian Year 


observed from the earliest times and was 
no doubt due to the express teaching of 
the Apostles. 

2. Wednesday and Friday as fasting 
days, are probably equally primitive. The 
Jews observed Monday and Thursday 
(Luke 18:12). The Christians moved 
their days forward, as the Lord’s Day 
would naturally suggest, bringing Wednes- 
day midweek, and Friday a fast in com- 
memoration of the Crucifixion. 

3. Haster and Pentecost came into gen- 
eral observance, together with Good Fri- 
day, very early, though it is possible 
that owing to the confusion of opinion as 
to the dates of such days as Kaster and 
the Nativity, this observance was not uni- 
versal before the third century. 

4, By the year 400 A. D., therefore, it 
is known that the following had become 
fixed in the Christian Year: Christmas, 
Epiphany with Octave; Presentation, 
Palm Sunday, Easter with Octave, Ascen- 
sion Day, Pentecost; also these, St. 
Stephen and All Martyrs Day, St. James 
the Brother of our Blessed Lord; St. 
Peter, St. Paul, St. James, and St. John. 
Holy Cross Day, September 14th, also be- 
longed to this early calendar, which was 
in commemoration of the dedication, in’ 
335, of the churches built by Constantine 
on the site of the Holy Sepulcher and Cal- 
vary. Silvia, who recorded the incidents 
of her travels, about 385, describes the 
customs at Jerusalem as she herself saw 
them, in what is known as “The Pilgrim- 
age of Silvia.” 

Thus the calendar stood in the year 
400. All other days and feasts to which 
reference has been made were added from 
time to time as the Church developed 
her life. 

PascaL HARROWER. 

References: 

Barry, Alfred, ed. Teacher’s Prayer 

Book. (New York, 1899.) 

Blunt, J. H., ed. Annotated Book 

of Common Prayer. (London, 1895.) 

Dearmer, Percy. Parson's Hand- 

book, (London, 1907.) 

Frere, W. H. Some Principles of 

Inturgical Reform. (London, 1911.) 

Hastings, James, ed. Dictionary of 

Christ and the Gospels. 2 v. (New 

York, 1906-09.) 

Lee, F. G., ed. Directorum Anglico- 

rum. Hd. 4. (London, 1879.) 


Christmas 


Pellicca, A. A. The Polity of the 
Christian Church . . . tr. by J. C. 
Bellett. (London, 1883.) 


CHRISTMAS, OBSERVANCE OF.— 
Jesus’ birthday was first celebrated in the 
second century, so ordered, it is said, by 
Telesphorus (138-161 A. D.), the seventh 
Bishop of Rome, this with other offenses, 
being the cause of his martyrdom. The 
observance lived through flame and sword. 
_ For several centuries it was not a season 
of joy, but one of heroic devotion. On 
one occasion hundreds of worshipers were 
burned alive when assembled for this cele- 
bration. 

December 25th is not the actual date 
of the birth of Jesus. That is unknown. 
The selection of this day as natalis by 
the Western Church was by no means arbi- 
trary. At this season of the year a series 
of pagan festivals in relation to the social 
life of the Romans were held, culminating 
in that of the winter solstice, the birthday 
of the new sun. This festival was spirit- 
ualized and made symbolic by followers of 


the Christian faith. The Eastern Church » 


chose January 6th as “Epiphania,” but in 
the fourth century transferred its cele- 
bration to the same date as that of the 
Western. The Christmas of the Greek 
Church, however, is still twelve days later 
than ours. (See Christian Year.) 

The legend of St. Boniface and the first 
Christmas tree tells of its use six hundred 
years after the first observance of Christ- 
mas. In brief this is the story: One 
wintry night, on a hillock where stood the 
“Thunder Oak” sacred to the god Thor, 
a company of people were assembled; in 
the midst were the high priest and a 
kneeling child—a victim to be sacrificed 
by the blow of a hammer. Boniface ap- 
peared, turned aside the blow of the 
hammer by the Cross, rescued the boy, and 
felled down the oak. “Here,” said he, as 
his eyes fell on a young fir tree, “is the 
living tree that shall be a sign of new wor- 
ship—the tree of the Christ Child, for this 
is the birth night of the White Christ. 
Go no more into the shadows of the forest 
to keep your feasts with secret rites of 
shame; keep them at home with laughter 
and song and rites of love.” 

The observance of Christmas in many 
lands can only be touched upon here. 
Constantinople, it is said, has more kinds 


256 - 


Christmas 


of brilliant Christmases than any other 
city. 
the son of Mary,” and Roman Catholics, 
Greeks, Armenians, and Protestant Chris- 
tians all celebrate the festival in different 
ways. 

In Germany, on Christmas Eve, the 
whole household attends a simple and im- 
pressive church service, each person going 
with a lighted candle, the first comer find- 
ing the church in darkness. In Sweden 
and Norway the “Julafred,” or peace of 
Christmas is publicly proclaimed. In 
early days a festival was celebrated to 


their gods and the old practices still main- 


tain in the Christian celebration, one be- 
ing the feeding of birds. Cartloads of oat 
sheaves are brought into the towns for 
this purpose, and the poor save pennies to 
buy bunches of oats. Animals, generally, 
receive a double amount of food. 

In Roman Catholic countries the mid- 
night mass—most wonderfully held at the 
Madeleine in Paris—proclaims “Unto us 
a child is born, unto us a son is given.” 
An interesting study on this subject may 
be found in Holy-Days and Holidays, by 
Edward Deems. “Christmas in Many 
Lands” is set forth in song for children in 


a pamphlet published by Clayton Summy 


Company, Chicago. 

For America’s celebration of Christmas, 
Hamilton Mabie has well said: “He who 
does not see in the legend of Santa Claus 
a beautiful faith on one side and the 


naive embodiment of a divine fact on the 


other, is not fit to have a place at the 
Christmas board. For him there should 
be neither card, nor holly, nor mistletoe; 
they only shall keep the feast to whom all 
these things are but the outward and vis- 


ible signs of an inward and spirituay 


grace.” 

The wealth of good material to-day for 
a Sunday-school celebration of Christmas, 
both from the historic standpoint and 
that of the spirit of good will and love 
makes something fresh always possible, 


but the old in music, poem and story is, as 


a whole, better than ‘the new. 

At least sixty Christmas stories for chil- 
dren may be found. A list of many of 
these can be obtained at public libraries. © 

The Christmas religious service for the 
Sunday school may well be composed of 
that which is grand and beautiful rather 
than the trashy music and rhymes of some 


Moslems do honor to “Christ Jesus, | 








| 


Church Attendance 


modern programs. There is a growing ap- 
opreciation of that which is worthy of a 
sermanent place in experience and an in- 
easing tendency to discard what is 
sphemeral and trivial. The thoughtful 
jeacher may render a great service by 
1elping a church or Sunday school to cul- 
jivate a discriminating taste in regard to 
ill that pertains to the Christmas observ- 
wmce. That which suggests an attitude of 
‘everence and worship should have the 
wreference over that which is merely 
nirthful ; a worshipful spirit is not incon- 
jistent with joy but a rollicking mirth 
nay easily degenerate into boisterous 
ailarity, which may obscure the deeper 
neaning of Christmas. 

| FREDERICA BEARD. 


| CHURCH ATTENDANCE OF PUPILS. 
Sez CHILDREN’s CHURCH; CHURCH, 
RELATION OF THE, TO THE RELIGIOUS 
WIFE OF THE CHILD; JUNIOR CONGREGA- 


TON; WorsHIP, CHILDREN’S. 








CHURCH 
JHURCH, 


CAMPS.—SrExE CAMPs, 


CHURCH GYMNASIUMS.—Szxr Gym- 
tAsIUMS, CHURCH. 





CHURCH LADS’ BRIGADE.—Srr 
TUILDS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE, ANGLICAN, 
| 


_CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN CANADA, 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK OF THE.— 
. History. The beginnings of Sunday- 
chool work in the Church of England in 
Janada go back to a time contemporary 
vith the beginnings of the modern Sun- 
lay-school movement. As early as 1783, 
mly three years after Robert Raikes 
ig. v.) began his work in Gloucester, and 
‘everal years before the veteran Bishop 
White (q. v.) established Sunday schools 
n Philadelphia, St. Paul’s Church, Hali- 
ax, Nova Scotia, had a Sunday school. 
%. Paul’s thus ranks not only as the 
‘mother school” of Canada, but also, in 
ill probability, as the oldest Sunday school 
vith a continuous history on this conti- 
lent, and one of the oldest in the world. 
This statement is made on the authority 
f Dr. Aikens, who was the Archivist for 
he Province of Nova Scotia and gathered 
il the Church of England documents. 





| 
| 
I 


. 


R57 


Churcli of England (Canada) 


He states that Dr. Breynton established 
St. Paul’s Sunday school in 1783. In 
1790 St. Paul’s Sunday school had thirty- 
five children enrolled. Bishop Charles 
Inglis speaks in his diary, which may be 
seen in Halifax, of having a Sunday school 
in 1788 with thirteen boys taught by a Mr. 
Tidmarsh, and ten girls taught by a Miss 
Clark. ] 

The growth of the organized Sunday- 
school work from this early beginning has 
been a very gradual one and follows natu- 
rally the development of the corporate life 
of the church. As the work of the church 
spread and the various dioceses were 
formed, each Diocesan Synod, in due 
course, through its own special Committee, 
provided for the furtherance of its Sun- 
day-school work along its own lines. The 
formation of ecclesiastical provinces, by 
the grouping together of certain dioceses 
under a common Synod, broadened and 
unified the work of the church and had its 
effect upon the Sunday-school work. For 
a number of years a splendid work was 
done in Eastern Canada by the Interdioc- 
esan Sunday School Committee repre- 
senting those dioceses included, until quite 
recently (October, 1912), in the Ecclesi- 
astical Province of Canada, comprising 
the civil provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince 
Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec - 
and most of Ontario. (See Canada, His- 
tory of the Associated 8. S. Work in the 
Dominion of.) 

The formation of the General Synod in 
1893, however, made possible organization 
upon still broader lines, of which the Sun- 
day-school leaders in the church were not 
slow to take advantage. In 1902, at the 
third session of the General Synod, the 
first Committee representing the Sunday- 
school interests of the whole church was 
appointed, and it was through the splen- 
did efforts of this Committee that the way 
was opened for the establishing in 1908 of 
the Sunday School Commission for the 
purpose of unifying the various interests, 
parochial and diocesan, which center in 
and around the Sunday-school work of the 
church. 

Previous to this, however, several of the 
dioceses had anticipated the work of the 
Commission and organized their Sunday- 
school work very effectively on broad lines. 
This was notably the case in the Diocese 
of Rupert’s Land, comprising most of 


Church of England (Canada) 


the Province of Manitoba, which in the 
year 1907 had so awakened to the necessity 
of action in this direction as to appoint a 
field secretary of its own. 

2. Organization. The highest legisla- 
tive body of the Church of England in 
Canada is the General Synod, which meets 
every three years. All the work of the 
church is, speaking generally, under the 
control of this body; but it delegates cer- 
tain work to other bodies constituted by 
it. So far as the organized Sunday-school 
work is concerned, it centers about the 
Sunday School Commission, which was 
called into existence by a special canon of 
the General Synod passed at its fifth ses- 
sion in September, 1908. 

The Commission is a very representative 
body, all the Bishops being members ez 
officio, and each diocese being privileged 
to elect two clerical and two lay represen- 
tatives. The General Synod itself, 
through its Prolocutor, also appoints four 
members at each triennial session. The 
Primate of the church is ex officio, Presi- 
dent of the Commission, but the other 
officers are elected by the Commission 
itself, which also elects its own Executive. 
Meetings of the Commission are held 
twice a year, but the Executive meets as 
often as necessity requires. 

In order that the Commission may work 
effectively, each of the dioceses is expected 
to organize a Diocesan Sunday School As- 
sociation and also to provide for the 
formation of Branch Associations for 
small groups of parishes or missions. 
Each of these Associations acts as the 
Commission’s Agent in the furthering of 
the organized Sunday-school work. In 
both the Diocesan and Branch Associa- 
tians special officers are appointed to be 
responsible for the promoting of the fol- 
‘lowing organized departments, viz: 
Teacher Training, Font Roll, Home De- 
partment, Missionary Department, Adult 
Bible Class Department, Statistical De- 
partment, and Literature Department. 

By means of this scheme of organiza- 
tion the Commission is able to get into 
direct touch with the local schools, work- 
ing through the Diocesan Association and 
its branches. 

In December, 1909, a General Secretary 
to the Commission was appointed, who 
acts as the Commission’s Executive Agent. 
He began his work in April, 1910, with 


208 





headquarters in Toronto. The present 
office of the Commission is 137 Confed- 
eration Life Building, Toronto, where the 
editorial and secretarial work are carried 
on. 

As the. Sunday School Commission is a 
body representative of the whole church, 
its work is naturally a charge upon the 
whole church. Upon this principle a 
definite apportionment is laid upon each 
diocese. By resolution of the General 
Synod, the third Sunday in October is set 
apart as a day to be especially devoted to 
the interests of Sunday-school work, and 
is known as “Children’s Day” (gq. v.). 
On this day offerings are expected to be 
taken in every church and Sunday school 
throughout the Dominion for the work of 
the Commission. In this way funds for 
the support of its work are provided. 

38. The Work. When the Commission 
was constituted, the task assigned to it was 
stated as follows :— 

“Tt shall be the duty of the Sunday 
School Commission to study the problems 
of religious instruction and church train- 
ing in connection with the Sunday school, 
as an auxiliary to the church’s ideal and 


‘i 


Church of England (Canada) 


method of Christian education, and to 


adopt such measures as the Commission 
may deem advisable to promote the effi- 
ciency of Sunday schools and to advance 
the cause of religious education, all in 
harmony with the authority of the bishop 


of each diocese and of the incumbent of 


each parish.” 

To carry this out a very definite policy 
was outlined, which may be summarized 
as follows :— 

(1) The effective organization of the 


Sunday-school work of the dioceses along 
the lines already set forth above under | 


“Organization.” 
(2) The furthering of the various recog- 


nized departments of organized Sunday- 


school work. 


(3) The preparing and recommending 


of schemes of study for Sunday schools. 


(4) The securing of the publication of 
a Sunday-school paper to supplement the | 
all too short hour available for teaching 


in the Sunday school. | 
As a result of a faithful adherence 


to this policy, the following results are 


noteworthy :— 


(1) It has been instrumental in estab- | 
lishing or reorganizing fifteen Dioceatt 


ta i 


i 


Church of England (Canada) 


Sunday School Associations, with fifty- 
six Branch Associations. . 
(2) It has established a First Standar 
Course in Teacher Training and conducts 
examinations regularly each year upon 
this course. 

_ (8) It has provided a System of Ex- 
aminations for the pupils of the Sunday 
schools upon the course of lessons pre- 
scribed for the main school. 

(4) It has issued a special three-year 
‘course of lessons for children under nine 
years of age, a six year scheme of Scrip- 
ture and Prayer Book Lessons for the 
main school, and has recommended spe- 
cial courses for use in Junior and Senior 
Bible classes. 

(5) Through its efforts, the bishops of 
the church now require all candidates for 
Holy Orders to pass a special examination 
in the Art and Science of Teaching and in 
Sunday-School Management and Methods, 
and to this end courses of lectures are 
given at the various theological colleges 
by the General Secretary of the Commis- 
sion and others. 

_ (6) It has organized and conducted, 
either independently or conjointly with 
the missionary society of the church, six 
summer schools in the past three years 
and has made provision for the regular 
conduct of such schools. 

_ (7%) It has issued and circulated lit- 
erature dealing with all the recognized 
departments of Sunday-school work as 
well as literature dealing with the work in 
its more general aspects. 

(8) It has brought about, through the 
agency of the Society for Promoting 
Christian Knowledge (q. v.), the publica- 
tion of a twelve page weekly Sunday- 
school paper known as Our Empire, which 
in the first year of its existence has reached 
a circulation in Canada alone of about 
23,000 copies per week. 

(9) The head office has become a 
Bureau of Information to which, more and 
more, the members of the Church of 
England in Canada go for advice and 
help in connection with their Sunday- 
school work. At this office, too, there is 
being gradually gathered an exhibit of 
the best Sunday-school literature and helps, 
_ The prospects for the future are very 
bright. The work has grown so rapidly 
as to render it necessary to appoint in the 
near future an assistant field secretary. 





259 


Church of England 


Eventually it is hoped gradually to in- 
crease the number of such field secre- 
taries, assigning to each his own district 
but working under the authority and di- 
rection of the Commission. Several of the 
dioceses, too, are being so aroused as to 
consider the advisability of appointing 
field secretaries of their own. The Diocese 
of Huron has already done this as well as 
the Diocese of Rupert’s Land referred to 
above. Other dioceses will no doubt soon 
follow their example. 
4, Statistics: 


These figures are approximate only. 


. Number of Diocesan Sunday School 

ABSOCIATION SG: Cie dielasa ieee elaiase wana e's 
Number of Branch Associations.... 73 
Number of Sunday Schools....... 2,100 


Number of Sunday School Pupils. .122,000 
. Number of Teachers and Officers.. 13,000 
. Total Active Sunday School Mem- 

Dership fest. eee Ce een e tae 135,000 


R. A. Hivrz. 


CHURCH OF ENGLAND SUNDAY- 
SCHOOL INSTITUTE.—Srrt CuurcH oF 
ENGLAND; GRADED Lessons, BRITISH; 
St. CHRISTOPHER’S COLLEGE. 


CHURCH OF ENGLAND, SUNDAY- 
SCHOOL WORK OF THE.—The instruc- 
tion of the young in the facts and doc- 
trines of Christianity has from the earli- 
est times been accepted by the Church of 
England as a part of its duty. Before 
the Reformation a school was considered a 
necessary part of a religious house of any 
size, numerous grammar schools were 
founded, and the Canon Law required 
that in every rural parish a clerk should 
be provided to keep school for the chil- 
dren. A catechism was published in the 
Prayer Book of 1549, and directions were 
given for the instruction of the children 
in it on Sundays by the clergy. These 
directions were repeated in the Canons of » 
1603, which enacted that “every parson, 
vicar or curate, upon every Sunday and 
Holy-day, shall instruct the youth and 
ignorant persons of his parish, in the Ten 
Commandments, the Articles of the Belief 
and in the Lord’s Prayer, and shall dili- 
gently hear, instruct and teach them the 
catechism,” and that “all fathers, mothers, 
masters and mistresses shall cause their 
children, servants and apprentices which 
have not learned the catechism to come to 
the church at the time appointed.” 

This authorized method apparently fell 


OV OO RS fs 


Church of England 


greatly into disuse in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries, for we find traces 
of other efforts to supply Sunday teach- 
ing. Mrs. Catherine Beovey, who died in 
1726, was accustomed to have six children 
by turn at her house on Sundays, when 
after giving them dinner she heard them 
say the catechism. In 1763, the Rev. 
Theophilus Lindsey (q. v.) and his wife 
taught the Scriptures to the children on 
Sundays, letting them read in turn. Miss 
Hannah Ball (q. v.) of High Wycombe, in 
1769, had classes in her house and in the 
nave of the parish church. These prob- 
ably represent many instances of people 
desirous of improving the children of 
their neighborhood and leading to the 
movement begun by Robert Raikes and 
the Rev. Thomas Stock in Gloucester in 
1780. 

It is not necessary to tell here the story 
of Raikes and of the circumstances mov- 
ing him to begin the Sunday schools in 
Gloucester, which were rapidly copied 
elsewhere. (See Raikes, Robert.) An 
article in the Gloucester Journal of No- 
vember 3, 1783, shows that thus early 
“some of the clergy in different parts of 
the country” were “establishing Sunday 
schools for rendering the Lord’s Day sub- 
servient to the ends of instruction,” and 
describes how “persons duly qualified are 
employed to instruct those that cannot 
read, and those that may have learned to 
read are taught the catechism and con- 
ducted to church.” For the first thirty 
years the teachers were paid a small sum 
each Sunday, and the teaching of reading 
occupied a large place in the program, but 
early in the nineteenth century the prac- 
tice of paying the teachers ceased and 
with the spread of day schools the time 
devoted to teaching reading was reduced 
and gradually became unnecessary. 

The next thirty years saw the steady 
extension of Sunday schools, until they 
became a recognized part of parochial 
work, and along with this expansion ef; 
forts were made to improve the efficiency 
of the schools by the Sunday School 
Union (gq. v.), which under its composite 
committee helped the church schools. 

In 18438 this help became less available. 
The Oxford Movement (q. v.) had di- 
rected attention to the distinctive prin- 
ciples of the church and some schools 
wanted lessons on Prayer Book subjects, 


260 


Church of England 


which the Union did not see its way to 
supply. There was, therefore, founded in 
that year the Church of England Sunday 
School Institute, which began at once to 
help the church schools by publishing 
lesson notes, holding training classes on 
the subjects, providing lectures, meetings 
for discussing points of management, and 
normal classes for the study of method. 
In 1848 it began to publish a quarterly, 
and in 1851, a monthly magazine for 
teachers. These continued until 1864, 
when they were combined into the present 
monthly Church Sunday School Maga- 
zine. 

The year 1871 marked another epoch in 
church Sunday-school progress. The 
Education Act which then came into oper- 
ation concentrated attention upon the re- 
ligious value of the Sunday schools, the 
annual examination of teachers began and 
Stock’s Lessons on the Life of our Lord 
were published. From 500 to 1200 teach- 
ers have since entered annually for the 
examination and the new lessons set a 
standard which gradually rendered the 
earlier books obsolete. 

Side by side with the improvement in. 
manuals the instruction of the teachers in. 
method proceeded. Local associations of 
groups of parishes arrange meetings for 
lectures and model lessons. These meet-. 
ings have latterly become much more thor-. 
ough than they were, by the substitution 
of courses of lectures for isolated ad-| 
dresses, and these have developed further 
into the “training weeks” now common. 
(See Teacher Training in England.) A 
later form of organization is that of the 
diocesan associations, which grouped the 
existing associations within their area and 
encouraged the formation of others. Some 
of these diocesan associations were formed 
about the time of the Sunday-school cen- 
tenary. The plan has latterly become gen- 
eral, some of the dioceses employing offi-| 
cials, clerical or lay, to look after the work.| 

The increased study of the subject in| 
the early years of the present century led 
to many plans of improvement, including 
the grading of schools, the provision of 
courses of lessons for different ages, and 
the suggestion of appropriate methods, 
notably those of the kindergarten. The 
Sunday school Institute and the National 
Society (g. v.) have carried the new 
methods into all parts of the country and 












Church Help Society 


the former has founded St. Christopher’s 
College, Blackheath (q. v.), which was 
opened by the Archbishop of Canterbury 
on February 3, 1909, to train women as 
leaders of improvement in their own dis- 
tricts. 

The visible results of the Sunday school 
in the church are numerous and varied. 
It has provided an opportunity for lay 
work and has furnished a large number of 
confirmation candidates, and of lay work- 
‘ers. Many persons have there received 
their first impulse towards the ministry or 
the mission field, and in the crowded parts 
of the large towns the Sunday school has 
often been the pioneer of church exten- 


sion. Henry Dawson. 
| 
_ CHURCH OF ENGLAND WOMEN’S 
HELP SOCIETY.—SEE GUILDS FOR 
Youne Propie, ANGLICAN. 


_ CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, RELI- 
GIOUS INSTRUCTION OF YOUTH IN 
‘THE.—In no other respect is the Church 
of Scotland showing more vitality than in 
its care for the religious training of its 
young people; and, with each succeeding 
“year, there are abundant signs that greater 
‘interest is being taken in the work of Sun- 
‘day schools and Bible classes, and that 
‘methods are being adopted more in har- 
mony with the modern system of educa- 
tion, to the great advantage both of teach- 
ers and pupils. The General Assembly of 
the church has placed this important de- 
partment of its work in the hands of a 
large Committee of specially gifted and 
Interested ministers and laymen. 

The General Assembly of 1911, recog- 
nizing that to a committee charged with 
so important and extensive work a regular 
income is indispensable, resolved “that the 
Committee shall receive a periodical col- 
lection as its circumstances may require,” 
and the first of these collections, taken in 
1912, realized £1101-16s-8d. While this 
is so, it is interesting to note that, in the 
same year, the total amount of collections 
in Sunday schools and Bible classes was 
£11,893-9s-03d, of which £4,712-7%s-64d 
was contributed for the Schemes of Les- 
sons and other objects sanctioned by the 
General Assembly. 

In their efforts to maintain close and 
living relations with the schools and 
classes the Committee has been increas- 


261 


Church of Scotland 


ingly impressed with the importance of 
keeping their publications at a high level, 
and although it has necessarily involved 
increased expenditure, they have both im- 
proved' existing publications and added to 
their number. Of their Schemes of Les- 
sons and Lesson Booklets no fewer than 
171,097 were sold in 1912, and in regard 
to the Schemes of Lessons in actual use 
it is a matter of great rejoicing that, as 
a result of mutual negotiations entered 
into between the Committee and the Wel- 
fare of Youth Committee of the United 
Free Church, there is a practical certainty 
that in the very near future a Joint 
Scheme of Instruction will be in force in 
the Sunday schools of the two great Pres- 
byterian churches in Scotland. The 
Teacher's Magazine, which is the official 
organ of the Committee, has afforded in- 
valuable assistance to superintendents and 
teachers, containing,.as it does, notes by 
competent writers on the Schemes of Les- 
sons, articles by outstanding authorities 


_ on methods of teaching, informative notes 


on general Christian activity, besides ar- 
ticles of special interest to parents and 
teachers. Its circulation for 1912 reached 
the highwater mark of 176,250. But even 
this comes only second to the popularity of 
Morning Rays which, with its circulation 
of 840,250, has attained a high position 
among religious papers for the young and 
has achieved notable work in pointing its 
readers to the exercise of practical Chris- 
tianity. 

In no other way, perhaps, has the Com- 
mittee brought itself into more living 
touch with the children of the schools than 
through its introduction, in 1911, of a 
system of examination on all the subjects 
comprised within the lessons and subjects 
of study. The scheme has already had 
phenomenal success and bids fair in due 
time to accomplish its aim of bringing 
into union all the Sunday schools of the 
land. While in 1911, 3,993 pupils were 
examined and 3,512 certificates awarded, 
the corresponding figures for 1913 were 
8,271 pupils examined and 7,452 certifi- 
eates awarded, and of this last examina- 
tion the examiners state that the character 
of the work testifies highly to the careful 
instruction given in the schools by min- 
isters and teachers, as also to the intelli- 
gent interest displayed by the children in 
all the subjects of the examinations. It 


Church of Scotland 


is worthy of note that in accordance with 
their determination to maintain the con- 
tinuity of religious teaching during the 
period between leaving the Sunday school 
and entering the communicants’ class, 
ample provision has been made in this 
annual examination scheme for Bible 
class members and that, of the 371 such 
members examined in 1913, twenty came 
from Alexandria, Egypt, one from Am- 
sterdam, and four from Rotterdam. 

As a further means of attaining a 
closer living contact with the work of the 
schools the General Assembly has, on the 
suggestion of the Committee, recom- 
mended the formation of Presbyterial As- 
sociations in all districts, where it may 
be practical, for the mutual help of Sun- 
day-school teachers. The meetings and 
conferences of these Associations are read- 
ily visited by delegates from the Com- 
mittee who expound its aims and policy, 
lecture on methods of teaching, or actu- 
ally teach demonstration lessons on reli- 
gious subjects. While such means afford 
both help and encouragement to their 
workers in the schools, the Committee 
has felt that their large band of un- 
trained teachers, through whose Chris- 
tian conviction and earnestness so much 
good has been wrought for the children, 
require more direct means of further 
equipping themselves for their important 
duties. With this end in view they have 
instituted The Sunday School Teachers’ 
Diploma to be obtained on the candidate’s 
passing an examination on principles and 
practice of teaching, Christian evidences, 
and Our Lord’s teaching. Ample prep- 
aration for this examination is afforded 
through articles in The Teacher’s Mag- 
azine and a highly successful correspond- 
ence class conducted by one of the ablest 
ministers of the church. What is being 
done through this plan may be inferred 
from the last report of the chief-examiner: 
“In the correction of the work I was not 
conscious of a weary minute, and more 
than once I wished I could come face to 
face with and congratulate those teachers 
who, in the reverent and _ beautiful 
thoughts of their papers, were confessing 
themselves an honor to the Church of 
Scotland.” Such teachers will be glad to 
know of the Committee’s Travelling Li- 
brary Scheme by means of which the finest 
religious and educational literature will, 


262 


i 


¥. 


Church, Place of S. S. in. 


for the asking, be sent free of charge. No 
less than 856 teachers have already been 
presented with The Long Service Certifi- 
cate, granted only to those whose service 
has been not less than twenty-one years. 
D. S. CALDERWOOD. 


CHURCH, PLACE OF THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL IN THE.—The Sunday School is 
a Church Activity. The present day con- 
ception of the Sunday school is that it 
is not an institution standing alone, but 
is the church engaged in one of its legit- 
imate lines of work. In the day of its 
beginning this was not true, for what is 
known as the modern Sunday school had 
its birth quite outside and wholly inde- 
pendent of the church. It was not recog- 
nized by the church except in rare in- 
stances, and not until many years after- 
wards did the church begin to realize the 
value and importance of the Sunday 
school. 

The recognition of its true value has 
grown during the passing years, until now 
the Sunday school is almost universally 
regarded with favor. However, a study 
of the official religious statistics reveals the 
fact that even to-day the number of 
churches exceeds the number of Sunday 
schools. When a church really compre- 
hends the true Sunday-school idea, it has 
opened the door to its greatest opportu- 
nity and largest usefulness. Thousands of 
churches have realized by experience that 
the best way to reach their highest effi- 
ciency is by giving proper emphasis to 
their Bible teaching-and-studying service. 
The preaching service can claim no higher 
Biblical authority than can the teaching 
service, and a modern Sunday school more 
nearly resembles the service in the syna- 
gogue in the days of Christ than does the 
usual preaching service of the present 
day. | 

The Sunday School is a School. The 
Sunday school is a place of earnest study 
and investigation of the Word of God and 
the truths of the Christian religion. An 
efficient and well-trained corps of teachers 
is necessary to the best results. The teach- 
ing and studying are not spasmodic, but 
are continued from week to week and year 
to year. As it is impossible to calculate 
the educational value of the public-school 
systems of the present day, so it is impos- 
sible to estimate the moral and religious 


Church, Place of S. S. in 


influence growing out of a thoroughly 
good Sunday school. No small part of 
this influence is due to the fact that the 
services of the officers and teachers are 
rendered yoluntarily, and in many cases, 
at much sacrifice of convenience, time, and 
money. ‘This spirit of devotion on the 
part of the Sunday-school workers is a 
vital force and a real asset to the church. 
It is possible that all churches may be 
richly blessed through the faithful work 
‘done in their Sunday schools. 

_ The Sunday School is the Church’s 
School. When the church fully appre- 
ciates its responsibility for the religious 
education of its members—particularly 
for the children and young people—the 
Sunday school becomes a concrete expres- 
sion of that responsibility. The church 
is in authority and should see that the 
‘Sunday school is properly officered, 
housed, equipped, and maintained. Here 
is the place in which to teach the great 
fundamentals of the Christian religion, 
and also the particular beliefs of the de- 
nomination. As in the early days of our 
‘country the public school and the church 
‘stood side by side, and the pupils were 
‘expected to pass from the school into the 
‘church, so the Sunday school of to-day 
should be related to the church with which 
It is connected. The more seriously the 
church accepts her responsibility, and 
‘seeks to develop her fullest teaching effi- 
ciency, the shorter becomes the step from 
the Sunday school into full membership 
in the church, and the more readily will 
it be taken by the children and young 
people. 

The Sunday School is the Training- 
ground of the Church. Armies cannot be 
maintained without the addition of new 
recruits trained for warfare; neither can 
the church continue efficient service un- 
less constantly taking into its ranks the 
boys and girls and young people trained 
for Christian service. Whether or not 
these recruits are to be helpful to the 
church depends upon the extent and qual- 
ity of their training, and the Sunday 
school is the place in which to train them. 
The study of the church and all of its 
activities should be made a part of the 
regular work of the Sunday school. (See 
Leadership, Training for.) The young 
people of the Sunday school should be- 
come familiar with the duties of church 





263 


Church, Place of §S. S. in 


officers—deacons, elders, stewards, trus- 
tees, etc. 

The importance of proper training in 
the Sunday school is apparent when one 
remembers that a large proportion of those 
who give their lives to Christian service— 
secretaries of religious bodies, mission- 
aries, and other similar callings—receive 
their first impulse and a part of their 
training, in the Sunday school. (See 
Evangelism through Education.) Ninety- 
five per cent of the ministers of the Gospel 
come from the Sunday school. (See Min- 
istry, Recruiting the, through the S. 8.) 
It is important that there should be sys- 
tematic training, not only for efficiency in 
the local church, but for positions of 
larger usefulness. 

Likewise, the Sunday school is the place 
in which to teach systematic giving and 
the right principles of benevolence. (See 
Benevolences in the 8. 8.) The young 
people properly trained in the Christian 
grace of giving will immeasurably enrich 
the church and enlarge her powers. The 
opportunity is afforded by means of pupil- 
training, teacher-training, practice in 
teaching, work through organized classes, 
and various other ways to create a desire 
in the hearts of the young people to en- 
gage in definite Christian work, and to 
prepare them for such service. (See Vo- 
cation Day.) 

The Sunday School is the Church’s 
Best Channel for Community Service. 
There is scarcely a feature of the church’s’ 
service for humanity along the lines of 
good citizenship, civic. righteousness, 
prison reform, better sanitation, feeding 
the hungry, educating the poor, providing 
playgrounds to the children, beautifying 
the city, etc., but is now being effectually 
carried on by numerous Sunday schools 
through their organized classes of young 
people and adults. (See Activity ... 
in Religious Education ; Social Aspects of 
Religious . . . Education; Social Serv- 
ice and the S. 8.) 

The flexibility of the Sunday school, its 
adaptability to the needs of all localities, 
its familiarity with the field through its 
large membership, its abounding life, and 
its loyalty to the directing hand of the 
church, tend to make it peculiarly effec- 
tive in fulfilling the church’s responsi- 
bility to make the world better. Through 
its proper committees, the church may 


Church, Place of S. S. in 


decide upon certain features of social 
service in which to engage, and then in 
consultation with the 
officers, the various activities may be as- 
signed to organized classes or depart- 
ments. By assuming such responsibilities 
these classes or departments have the ex- 
ercise that is necessary to secure and to 
maintain a strong spiritual life, and an 
opportunity for expression by putting into 
practice the things they have learned from 
studying the life of the Saviour who “went 
about doing good.” (See Organized Adult 
Classes. ) 

The Sunday School is the Richest Por- 
tion of the Church’s Great Field. In the 
Sunday school are found larger numbers 
of the unsaved than in any other organiza- 
tion of the church, and they are at the 
age when most easily influenced to accept 
Christ as their Saviour. The number of 
young people who become Christians in 
the middle teen years—especially from 
fifteen to seventeen—is larger, by far, 
than at any other period. Passing beyond 
the twenty year mark often means to pass 
beyond the dead line, as comparatively 
few are reached in middle and later life. 
It is estimated that approximately eighty- 
_ five per cent of those who join the church 
through conversion or confirmation come 
from the Sunday school. While this is 
true, yet not over twenty or twenty-five 
per cent of the members of the Sunday 
school become members of the church 
while they are in the Sunday school, and 
about an equal number become members 
of the church after leaving the Sunday 
school. Therefore, more than one half 
the members of the Sunday school never 
unite with the church. 


But the success that has been attained: 


should stimulate the church to more ac- 
tivity in cultivating this fertile field. 
Here is shown more plainly than any- 
where else how far short the church often 
falls of a proper appreciation of the build- 
ing power of the Sunday school. A large 
proportion of the churches put but one- 
fifth of their time and money and mem- 
bership into the active work of the Sun- 
day school, though they continue to draw 
four-fifths of their membership from it. 
The greatest present need of the church is 
that the teaching in the Sunday schools 
may be more efficiently done; that the at- 
mosphere may be more distinctively evan- 


264 


Sunday-school | 


ow 


| 


Church and the Child 


gelical, and that the efforts to lead the 
pupils to personal decision for Jesus Christ 
shall be-more definite and compelling, 
The church that addresses herself vigor- 
ously to building up a strong, efficient 
Sunday school, along right lines and with 
the best ideals, is strengthening herself 
at every point, not only for to-day but for 
the future. The Sunday school is the 
very life of the church. 
Marion LAWRANCE. 


CHURCH, RELATION OF THE, TO 
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF THE CHILD, 
—The following propositions will be gen- 
erally allowed as axiomatic; namely, (1) 
The general duty of educating the child 
primarily rests with its parents, and only 
secondarily devolves upon the state. (2) 
The special duty of the moral-religious 
education of the child primarily rests with 
its parents, and only secondarily devolves 
upon the church (whether the church be 
established by law or not). This article 
can concern itself only with the larger 
implication of the second of these two 
propositions. The obligation of the 
church to care for the religious life of the 
young is inwoven in the whole texture of 
the teaching of the Bible, and it is ex- 
pressly enforced both in the Old Testa- 
ment and in the New. In the former we 
read, “These words, which I command 
thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and 
thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy 
children, and shalt talk of them when thou 
sittest in thine house . . . when thy son 
asketh thee in time to come, saying, What 
mean the testimonies, and the statutes, 
and the judgments, which the Lord our 
God hath commanded you? Then thou 
shalt say unto thy son” (Deut. 6:6, 7%, 
20): and in the latter we read, “ye fath- 
ers . . . bring them [your children] up 
in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord” (Eph. 6:4). But far above all 
such utterances is the sweet and solemn 
word of the Risen Lord, “Feed my lambs,” 
—a charge which rightly will go unre- 
pealed to the very end of the church’s his- 
tory. 
The Jewish synagogue had its affiliated 
school, in which the ages of five, ten, and 
thirteen years marked the successive 
grades of religious instruction imparted: 
and from the second century onwards the 
early Christian churches had their cate- 





Yhurch and the Child 


thetical schools which also were graded 
uccording to the attainments of the cate- 
shumens. The provision of such catechet- 
ical schools arose out of the felt need of 
sareful preparation of converts for Chris- 
ian baptism and of their further instruc- 
ion in the doctrines of the Christian 
faith. For a thousand years, from the 
sixth to the sixteenth century, the impor- 
ance of the catechist dwindled before the 
srowing importance of the priest. With 
the Reformation there came a revived 
sense of responsibility to the young and 
the reestablishment of catechetical in- 
truction, Luther’s example making 
tself felt even in some quarters of the 
Roman Catholic Church. (See Luther, 
Martin.) Not, however, until the closing 
rears of the eighteenth century was there 
iny general movement and organized 
iystem of schools for religious instruction. 
The modern Sunday school was one of the 
nost splendid fruits of the Evangelical 
revival. The work begun by Robert 
Raikes (g. v.) at Gloucester in 1780 was a 
jurely missionary enterprise on behalf of 
he poor and neglected children of his 
ime. ‘The churches were slow to perceive 
he need of the universal extension of the 
ystem, without distinction of class, high 
r low, rich or poor; and they have been 
lower still in converting the higher and 
roader ideal into the actual. The modern 
Sunday school in the Old World is still 
0o exclusively a mission school to the 
joor: in the New World the conception 
if the relation of the religious life of the 
hild has been more liberally interpreted 
nd more thoroughly applied. 

_ What then is that conception? What- 
ver be the ecclesiastical polity of its sev- 
al denominations the church catholic 
tands for a fourfold idea and praxis ; 
| an (a) the Worship of God; (b) the 

fellowship of Saints; (c) the Teaching 
f Truth; (d) the Redemption of the 
Vorld. These are “first things” that must 
Iways be put in the first place; and 
nth each one of them the child is inti- 
ately concerned, for the child-nature is 
aarvelously receptive of religious instruc- 
ion and experience. (See Religion, The 
Jhild’s.) In worship and fellowship the 
hild is capable of sustaining a real part; 
f truth and redemption the child is ca- 
vable of receiving all that the church will 
part, provided it be adapted in the 


265 


Church and the Child 


method of its presentation to his growing 
needs and capacities. Hence the pro- 
priety of the child’s presence in the sanc- 
tuary to enrich its worship and fellow- 
ship; from his earliest days he can show 
himself responsive to the august yet 
tender character of the worship. The 
service should be so ordered that it is 
adapted to his capacity and to his need. 

The unit of the church is not simple, it 
is complex; it is the family, not the indi- 
vidual; and, so far as the exigencies of 
modern life will permit, the assembly 
should (at least, at the morning session) 
be composed of families sitting together 
for common prayer and praise and medi- 
tation. The conception behind the 
“League of Worshipping Children” (q. v.) 
is far truer than that behind separate 
services. From this same conception of 
the church springs the true relation to 
itself of the Sunday school. The teaching 
office and missionary enterprise of the 
church should be directed first of all to 
the young. “Suffer the little children to 
come unto me . . . for of such is the 
Kingdom of Heaven.” “Go ye ... and 
make disciples baptizing 
teaching.” The school is not an institu- 
tion separate from the church; the school 
is the church at work among "the young. 
The school is the necessary and chief de- 
partment of the church’s work. A school 
may conceivably exist without a church, 
but a church without a school is more 
than an'anomaly. (See Church, Place of 
the S. 8S. in the.) The school is the con- 
cern not only of the individuals who com- 
pose its staff; it is the concern of the 
whole church, whose duty it is to make 
provision of adequate buildings and 
equipment, and of duly qualified officers 
and teachers. 

The minister’s presidency of the school 
should be real, not merely honorary; his 
part in the conduct of its business, and 
in the decisions of its policy should be 
more than official, it should be active, per- 
sonal, constant and ever animated by the 
spirit of gracious comradeship and lead- 
ership. (See Pastor and the 8.8.) The 
superintendent should be the nominee of 
the teachers, but his election should be by 
the highest authority in the church—the 
“church meeting” (where that institution 
exists)—so that the church may be con- 
stantly informed of its needs and its prog- 


Church School, The 


ress. In churches where a board of dea- 
cons or a court of elders exists the super- 
intendent might well be ex officio a mem- 
ber of the board or court in order still 
further to strengthen the bond between 
the church and the school, and to make the 
church’s work in the school still more effi- 
cient. Space does not here permit men- 
tion of the necessary qualifications of the 
officers and teachers; but one or two 
matters of great moment should be noted 
as of special import in all discussions of 
the relation of the church to the religious 
life of the child. (a) The ranks of the 
teachers increasingly need to be recruited 
from godly men and women who are at 
least the equals of the day school teachers 
in intellectual ability and educational 
equipment. (See Teacher, The S. 8.) 
(b) The studies which are (not too hap- 
pily) named the “psychology of the child,” 
and “child conversion,” need to be far 
more widely understood and applied. Hffi- 
ciency in the Sunday school is as imper- 
atively needed as in the day school. Other 
articles in this Encyclopedia will deal 
with some of these matters in detail; this 
article is only intended simply and broadly 
to outline the splendid ideal of the 
church’s work among the young, and to 
suggest the more important lines upon 
which that ideal may be reached. 
SIDNEY W. Bowser. 


CHURCH SCHOOL, THE.—This article 
undertakes to present a tentative ideal. 
It is an ideal that has not yet been fully 
realized by any church, so far as is known, 
but one which with varying degrees of suc- 
cess many churches are striving now to 
attain. 

The term church school is used inclu- 
sively to comprehend all the agencies of 
the local church which are distinctly edu- 
cational in purpose and method. Under 
the term are included the Sunday school, 
the various Young People’s societies and 
clubs, the communicants’ class, the teach- 
ers’ and workers’ training classes, and all 
other adult classes. But the church school 
also contemplates the careful correlation 
of these various agencies into a compre- 
hensive and unified system of religious 
education. 

The purpose of the church school may 
be stated thus: To develop lives of the 
Christian type, which are instructed, 


266 


q 


Church School, The 


trained, and consecrated to the realiza- 
tion of God’s Kingdom on earth. There- 
fore, the aim is the same as that of the 
church itself; but, while the church seeks 
to gain this end by a variety of agencies 
and method, the church school confines 
itself to graded instruction and training. 
The influence of Christian personality is 
counted upon as the greatest single factor 
in the entire process. (See Educational 
Agencies of the Church, Correlation of 
the. ) 

If the church school is to attain the 
end in view the following factors are to 
be taken into consideration: The Nature 
of the Child, the Organization of the 
School, the Selection of Expressional Ac- 
tivities. 

Tue Nature OF THE CHILD. It has 
become a truism to say that the nature 
of the child should determine all that is 
done for him. The endeavor is not to 
adapt the child to some rigid system of re- 
ligious thought and ecclesiastical practice, 
but to nurture him as a free and develop- 
ing personality into the highest type of 
life, and this task demands the fullest 
knowledge of what he is. Popular knowl- 
edge of the child is being supplemented by 
the more exact knowledge furnished by 
child psychologists, and through numerous, 
books and articles on this subject. | 

ORGANIZATION OF THE ScHoont. In 
order that many persons may work to- 
gether efficiently and harmoniously in the 
promotion of this object careful organiza- 
tion is necessary. What shall be its form? 
We have called it the church school. In 
this school there should be two main divi- 
sions: (1) The Young People’s or Under-' 
graduate Division; and (II) the Adult or 
Graduate Division. 

I. The Young People’s or Undergrad- 
uate Division. Of this there will be two 
subdivisions—the Sunday school, or school 
of instruction; and the Young People’s) 
societies, or training schools for service. 
Or, as these two schools stand for com-| 
plementary phases of one educational pro- 
cess, they might be combined into one) 
school which should provide both for in- 
structional and expressional work. The 
Sunday school will have the customary 
departments, grades and classes. The 
Young People’s societies should be at least 
four in number, and each one should be 
closely correlated with the corresponding 











267 


department in the Sunday school. For 


Church School, The Church School, The 


scientific invention puts at our service 


example, the Primary Department should 
be regarded as also a Primary Society, 
meeting once a week in the Sunday school 
for instruction in the knowledge of God, 
and once a week or less frequently for 
training in the service of the Kingdom. 
‘So with the Junior and Senior societies, 
But, for psychological reasons, the Inter- 
mediate Department of the Sunday school 
‘should be formed into two societies or 
clubs, in which boys and girls meet sepa- 
‘rately. The personnel of each department 
and of its corresponding society should be 
identically the same so far as the pupils 
are concerned, and when possible the same 
teachers should be in both schools. Where 
it is practicable the grade formations, 
‘though not the class formations, of the 
Sunday school should continue in the so- 
Gieties each grade of which should have 
an adult leader in charge. The young 
people in each society should elect officers 
from their own number, and appoint their 
own committees, and these, aided by the 
‘unobtrusive counsel of the adult leaders, 
should conduct their own societies. As the 
young people advance year by year from 
grade to grade in the Sunday school, they 
should keep pace with equal step in the 
societies, and graduation from one depart- 
ment of the Sunday school into the next 
higher should be accompanied by gradua- 
tion from the corresponding society into 
the one above. 
_ Character of the Teacher. The means 
or methods relied upon for securing the 
desired results are personal influence, in- 
struction, and training. The first and 
greatest factor in the work is Christian 
personality, hence the importance of care- 
fully selecting teachers and workers for 
the church school. The choicest person~ 
alities in the church should engage in this 
work. The second factor is the scope of 
knowledge possessed by the teacher or 
worker—knowledge of the pupil, knowl- 
dge of the truth, knowledge of the fields 
of service, and a knowledge of the right 
principles and methods of teaching and 
®aining. The third factor is practical 
Waining, which enables the teacher to pre- 
sent the truth to the mind of the pupil, 
ind to direct his activities into channels 
of useful service, in order to secure the 
lesired reactions in his life. All of the 
modern devices and instruments which 


| 
| 
. 








should be utilized in the teaching work. 
(See Teacher, 8. S., Personality and Char- 
acter of the.) | 

Curricula and- Programs. What should 
be taught in the Sunday school? What 
programs of expressional activities should 
be provided as aids to training for service 
through the Young People’s societies? 
This is the crux of the problem, and these 
questions are still being discussed. At 
present the church school is in a state of 
transition from a traditional type to one 
whose activities are more definitely related 
to the pupil and the object to be attained. 
In a brief article a full discussion of so 
large a question cannot be attempted; but 
a few suggestions may serve to indicate the 
line of thought. 

(a) What should be taught in the Sun- 
day school? One subject only: God and 
His revelations. In the Beginners’ and 
Primary departments, God mainly as re- 
vealed in nature; in the Junior Depart- 
ment, God as revealed in typical historic 
events through which the Kingdom of God 
was advanced. . In the Intermediate De- 
partment, God as revealed in worthy and 
useful Christian lives both great and 
humble, but supremely in the life of Jesus 
Christ our Lord; in the Senior Depart- 
ment, God as manifested in truth, scien- 
tific and theological, and in the church. 
The revelations of God in nature, in the 
significant events of history, in Christ and 
in worthy human lives, in truths and insti- 
tutions which are, in part, recorded in the 
Bible. This should be the chief textbook. 
Since, however, these revelations are con- 
tinued in general church and missionary 
literature, lessons from these sources 
should be taught occasionally. It is desir- 
able that the youth having learned by the 
study of the Bible to find God in life, 
should be taught to interpret religiously 
the events, movements, and persons in so- 
called secular history and in his own time, 
and to recognize God in what he sees, and 
wherever he goes. (See Extra-Biblical 
Studies. ) 

(b) What training should be given in 
the Young People’s societies? What 
should be taught? Such training should 
be given:as will help the child or youth to 
be of the greatest use within the sphere 
of his developing life. In the Primary 
period the field is the home; in the Junior 


Church School, The 


period it is the school and play circle; in 
the Intermediate, the church and the com- 
munity life; and in the Senior it is the 
country and the world. How to provide 
expressional activities which will contri- 
bute to this result is the problem under 
consideration. 

What should be taught in these soci- 
eties? One subject: the Kingdom of God, 
but the Kingdom of God as it is, or may 
be interpreted, for each stage of develop- 
ing life. In the Primary society instruc- 
tion should be given in what children 
should do, and how they should live, in 
order to contribute their share toward 
making the home a section of the King- 
dom of God. So in the Junior, Interme- 
diate and Senior societies appropriate in- 
struction should be given with reference 
to the day school, the church, the com- 
munity, the nation and the world. But the 
instruction will not be given for its own 
sake, but for the sake of providing incen- 
tive to and wise direction in actual doing. 

Missionary instruction should not be 
deferred until the Senior period, but that 
which is suitable should be given in each 
period. It should be given at the point 
of contact; that is, in the Primary period 
children will listen with interest and 
comprehension if they are told about the 
home life of foreign children. In the 
Junior period the pupils will listen to 
stories of foreign children’s school and 
play life; in the Intermediate period the 
pupils are interested in what concerns the 
religious and community life in the mis- 
sion field; and in the Senior period any 
phase of home or foreign missionary life 
may be presented. (See Missionary Edu- 
cation in the S. 8.) 

At approximately twenty years of age, 
the young people should graduate from 
the Senior into the Adult Department, 
which comprises the adult church mem- 
bership organized for study; and from the 
Senior society they should advance into 
the adult society, which is the adult mem- 
bership organized for work. 

II. The Adult or Graduate Division 
(twenty-one years up). In the Adult 
division, which should include as many of 
the Adult members of the church as are 
willing to organize for study and work, 
the main departments would be: The 
Home Department; Parents’ Class; 
Teachers’ and Workers’ Training Classes ; 


~— 


268 


Church School, The 


Bible, Mission, Social and Study Classes; 
Women’s Organizations; Men’s Clubs. 

In all Adult departments, classes, and 
clubs, the theoretical and the practical 
should be held in the closest possible rela- 
tion. If a group of adults is organized 
for some phase of social and missionary 
work textbooks relating to those subjects — 
would be the natural material for study. 

The Home Department (q. v.) aims to 
promote in the home and among those who 
cannot attend organized classes during 
the regular sessions of the Sunday 
school, the reading of the Bible and other 
books which help one to see and know 
God, and which inspire to service in His 
Kingdom. 

The Parents’ Class aims to gather to- 
gether the parents of the children and 
others who are in the church school, and 
to secure their interested and intelligent 
cooperation in promoting the moral and 
religious nurture of their children by in- 
struction in the use of the principles and 
methods which the best knowledge and ex- 
perience offer. (See Parents’ Classes.) 

The Teachers’ and Workers’ Traiwming 
Classes seek to instruct and train mem- 
bers to be teachers and workers, not only 
that they may serve the church, but also 
that they may learn how to make the 
church a more effective agency in the sery- 
ice of the community. (See Teacher 
Training. ) 

Women’s Organizations and Men's 
Clubs. In order that the community and 
world life may be transformed into the 
Kingdom of God, the people who are to 
lead in this work must be instructed and 
trained. Hence, classes of various kinds 
should be formed which will be working 
organizations also, such as Bible and mis- 
sion study classes, classes in social service, 
personal work, church polity, church his- 
tory, comparative religion, religious psy- 
chology. At least such classes are theoret- 
ically desirable. 

The church school will aim to become 
the agency through which the church ex- _ 
ercises its teaching function, and trains _ 
its members for efficient and consecrated 
service for the realization of God’s King- | 


dom on earth. W. H. Boocock. 
Reference: 


Athearn, W. S. The Church School. 
(Boston, 1914.) 


Church Scouts’ Patrols 


CHURCH SCOUTS’ PATROLS.—Serr 
GuILDS FoR YOUNG PEOPLE, ANGLICAN. 


CIGARETTE EVIL—There is no 


_ greater menace to the life of the American 


boy to-day than the cigarette. The author 
of this article has made a ten years’ study 
of the effects of smoking upon the char- 
acter of youth. This somewhat extensive 
survey has. shown that in practically all 


the large cities of America and in the 


majority of the small towns and villages, 
the juvenile smoking practice is extremely 
prevalent and is on the increase. Even 
the rural communities are becoming seri- 
ously infected with this insidious boy-kill- 
ing disease. 

Upon the question of the harmfulness 
of cigarettes when used by growing boys 
there is no division of opinion among the 
many persons who have made a fair in- 
quiry into the matter. During all his 
researches on the subject, the writer has 
not found one person of respectable stand- 
ing who was willing to defend the use of 
the cigarette by boys. It has been proved 
beyond question that cigarette smoking 
injures not only the present but the future 
well-being and usefulness of youths in 
respect to their health, mind, morals, and 
business success. 

1. In the tabulated account of more 
than 2,000 cigarette-smoking boys, it is 
found that the following terms were most 
frequently needed to describe the physical 
conditions: sallow, sore eyes, sore throat, 
sickly, puny, short winded, extremely 
nervous. ‘l'wenty-five well developed cases 
tested as follows: sore throat, 4; weak 
eyes, 10; pain in chest, 8; “short wind,” 
21; stomach trouble, 10; pain in heart, 
9; ten of the number appeared to be very 


sickly. 


According to Dr. Sims Woodhead, of 


Cambridge University, cigarette smoking 


in the case of boys, partly paralyzes the 


nerve cells at the base of the brain and 


thus interferes with breathing and heart 
action. The author tested with the sphyg- 
mograph the heart action of 100 boys 
who inhaled cigarettes. In practically 
every case the result was as follows: the 
first record, taken after two hours or more 
abstinence, showed a slow and weak heart 
beat; the second record, taken about two 
minutes after inhaling the fumes, showed 
an extremely strong and nervous response, 


269 


Cigarette Evil 


the width of the stroke being about 100 
per cent above normal; the third record, 
taken 15 to 20 minutes after the indulg- » 
ence, showed an extremely weak and 
rapid palpitation, the rate being more 
than 100 per minute. 

2. The mental deterioration of the 
cigarette-smoking boy is quite as marked 
as the physical. An examination of the 
grades of 50 habitual smokers and 50 non- 
smokers all in the same school class 
showed a difference of 174 per cent in 
favor of the nonsmokers. Dr. George H. 
Meylan of Columbia University found 
that among the students there the smokers 
were eight months behind the total ab- 
stainers in their classwork and that they 
also ranked lower in scholarship. Many 
other educators and scientists have made 
careful inquiries of the same nature and 
have reached the same_ conclusion; 
namely, that the youth who habitually 
uses tobacco is far inferior mentally to 
the one who does not. An even more 
striking difference is revealed when one 
examines the upper class of schools and 
colleges and finds that the cigarette users, 
who are so numerous in the lower grades, 
have now practically all dropped out of 
the class. 

3. Cigarette smoking and immoral con- 
duct go hand in hand. W. L. Bodine, 
Superintendent of Compulsory Education 
in Chicago, who sent more than a thou- 
sand boys to the parental school, an insti- 
tution for habitual truants under four- 
teen years of age, reports that 80 per cent 
of these were addicted to the cigarette 
habit. The reports that come from the 
juvenile court (q. v.) procedures, the re- 
form schools, and other institutions of the 
kind confirm without exception this 
theory of immorality. 

4. The economic disadvantage of the 
boy who uses cigarettes is very great. 
Many scores of large industrial establish- 
ments refuse to give employment to the 
cigarette smokers. Not a few who do ac- 
cord them work find the cigarette users 
ranking lower in efficiency than the non- 
users, and in many cases slower in win- 
ning their promotions. A small amount 
of inquiry will indicate beyond question 
that there is a deep-seated prejudice in 
the business world against the youthful 
cigarette smoker. 

Some Practical Conclusions.—What can 


Cigarette Evil 2 


the Sunday-school teacher and worker do 
to combat the cigarette evil? Very little 
can be accomplished toward breaking up 
the cigarette habit in the case of any boy 
who has fully acquired it, although a few 
scattered cases of success have been re- 
ported as follows: (1) In certain in- 
stances, religious conversions have been 
the means of overcoming the habit. After 
conversion the victim of the habit should 
be given friendly counsel and sympathet- 
ically guided for many weeks. He should 
be kept from temptation so far as prac- 
ticable and away from the company of 
youthful tobacco users. He should be 
given something to do and encouraged to 
assist in duties connected with the Sun- 
day school or the Young People’s society. 
(2) In a few other instances the cigarette 
poison has been worked out-of the system 
by means of vigorous physical exercise. 
Great care in selecting the companions of 
the victim and in introducing him to work 
that is interesting will help. The knowl- 
edge that he cannot win honors in ath- 
letics is often a strong incentive to the 
boy smoker to quit the habit. 

Prevention the Only Hope. The only 
certain method of combating the cigarette 
evil is to prevent the boys from taking up 
the practice. In this important field of 
endeavor the Sunday-school worker may 
proceed as follows: 

1. Whenever occasion offers in connec- 
tion with the teaching of a lesson the 
teacher should picture attractively the 
clean, pure-minded boy and show every 
possible advantage of this good life. He 
may call attention to the mistakes which 
boys make, and which interfere so seri- 
ously with the attainment of the best in 
hfe. In this connection he may present 
data showing the extreme harmfulness of 
cigarette smoking—the health under- 
mined, the morals weakened, the intellect 
impaired, and the opportunities for busi- 
ness success destroyed. 

2. It has been found helpful to induce 
the boys to sign a temperance pledge 
against the use of both tobacco and intox- 
icants. This pledge should be written or 
printed in language simple enough for 
‘the boy to understand, and arranged 
in an attractive typographical form. 
Throughout the discussion there should 
be an effort to make the nonuse of tobacco 
appear both advantageous and attractive. 


3. The greatest handicap for one who 


would combat the cigarette evil among 
boys is the example of the man smoker, 
This matter needs to be handled tactfully. 
It must be admitted that many good men 
smoke, but the boys should be assured that 
many of these men began the habit before 
they were old enough to know better; that 
the practice is expensive to them and 
annoying to others; and that the majority 
of those who smoke try to break off the 
habit and fail because of its deep-seated 
nature. 


\ 


0 Cigarette Evil. 


—————————————————— 


It should also be pointed out to 


the boys that they are in duty bound to 


surpass their parents in many things and 
that abstinence from the use of tobacco 
will help them to reach a higher standard 
of excellence than their fathers reached. 
4, It should be explained to the boys that 


smoking is merely a habit, easy to begin 


and difficult to break off; that nearly all 
of the great and brilliant leaders among 
modern men are total abstainers from the 
use of tobacco and liquor. It should be 
pointed out that women and girls have 
legitimate needs and desires whose grati- 
fication is reasonable but often impossible, 


because men waste money in a form of — 


self-indulgence peculiar to themselves, 


5. Finally, boys should be taught how — 


great a menace the use of tobacco is to 
the practice of a clean Christian life— 
that it seems inconsistent to pray for pur- 
ity of heart and for righteousness while at 
the same time one is debauching his body 
with the cigarette. They should be 
warned that boys who take up this habit 
soon drop out of Sunday school, are apt 
to fall into evil company and sinful 
ways, and at length to sink beyond the 
te of parental sympathy and divine 
help. 

6. An anti-cigarette meeting may be 
held among the boys, and every one of 
them may be called upon to speak in turn, 
each declaring the method whereby he is 


determined to keep himself free from the 


destructive cigarette habit; how they shun 
the company of the cigarette smokers and 
resent as an insult the proffers of smoking 
materials. 


of strengthening the moral purposes in 
the minds of all the boys in the class. 
W. A. McKErver. 
References: 
Anti-Cigarette Literature. Address 
\ 


S 


This occasional experience 
meeting may be found an excellent means 





Circle Talks 


the International 
Washington, D. C. 

McKeever, W. A. The Cigarette 
Smoking Boy. (Manhattan, Kansas, 
1909.) 

National Anti-Cigarette 
Various Pamphlets. 
Chicago, Ill. 

Scientific Temperance Journal. 
Anti-Narcotic number. Boston, Mass. 

Towns, C. B. The Injury of To- 
bacco. (New York.) 


Reform Bureau, 


League, 
Woman’s Temple, 


CIRCLE TALKS.—Srx Brecinners’ De- 
PARTMENT; Primary DEPARTMENT. 


CITY BOY.—Szrz Boy, Tuer City. 


CITY GIRL.—Sere Girt, Tue City, 
AND THE 8. 8. 


CITY PLAN OF RELIGIOUS EDUCA- 
TION.—The religious nurture of the 
children of a city demands the correla- 
tion and unification of all the agencies of 
religious culture into a well articulated 
city system of religious education which 
will supplement and complete the system 
of public schools. Scientific child study 
must be the basis of methodology in both 
secular and religious education. There 
must soon be worked out a unified pro- 
gram of education in which the classifica- 
tion and curriculum of the two systems 
of schools will be in perfect agreement. 

What has come to be known as the “Des 
Moines (Iowa) Plan” has been in success- 
ful operation since the fall of 1911. The 
religious workers of that city have pro- 
jected a city system of religious educa- 
tion which includes the following distinc- 
tive features: 

1. A City Board of Religious Educa- 
tion. This board represents the churches 
of the city. It holds the same relation to 
churches and the church schools of the 
city that a board of education holds to the 
people and the public schools. It elects 
the city superintendent, directs the model 
school, selects the faculty of the city In- 
stitute, and has general charge of all 
interchurch educational activities. 

(2. A City Superintendent of Religious 
Education. The city superintendent of 
religious education is the executive officer 
of the Board of Religious Education. He 
should be a trained educator who is in 


2 


Rt1 


City Training School 


every way competent to inaugurate and 
administer a scientific program of reli- 
gious education. This officer should be 
granted adequate salary, and he should 
give his full time to the supervision of 
the church schools of the city and the 
directing of all interchurch educational 
enterprises. (See New Haven Religious 
Education Federation.) 

3. A Model School. The training of a 
city’s religious teachers can be greatly 
facilitated by means of a model church 
school which is entirely under the control 
of the city superintendent and the faculty 
of the city Institute. The apprenticeship 
system needs to be supplemented by a 
model school where emphasis may be 
given to principles and processes rather 
than to the technique of class manage- 
ment. The model school should not be 
established until a capable teaching force 
is assured, 

4, A City Standard. Every city should 
have a system of inspection of its church 
schools. A common standard should be 
adopted as a basis of grading. The stand- 
ard should be a statement of the ideal for 
which the local schools are expected to 
strive. (See Standards, S. S.) 

5. A City Institute for Religious Teach- 
ers. This should be a high-class night 
school of religious education. It should 
be organized as an educational institution 
with its board of trustees, director, fac- 
ulty, curriculum, etc. The task of this 
school is to train the leadership for the 
church schools of the city. (See City 
Training School.) 

The city system of religious education 
will be a gradual evolution. It will usu- 
ally grow out of the city training school 
if the leaders have a clear cut conception 
of the entire city program and consciously 
direct the sentiment of the city towards 
the final goal. 

W. S. ATHEARN, 

Reference: 

Athearn, W. S. The City Institute 

for Religious Teachers, (Chap. II. 

Chicago, 1914.) 


CITY TRAINING SCHOOL.—The Aim. 
This is a night school of religion for the 
study of Sunday-school problems and of 
methods for increasing its. efficiency 
through teaching and better organization. 
Its primary object is to train leaders and 


City Training School 


to provide classes for more thorough study 
of the special departmental and grade 
work than can be followed in the classes 
of a single church. 

Organization. The school, or institute, 
is usually organized by calling together 
representatives of as many churches as 
are willing to codperate in the improve- 
ment of the Sunday school by careful edu- 
cation in modern methods. The Min- 
isters’ Union, The City or County Sunday 
School Association, or The Superintend- 
ents’ Union, The Graded Elementary 
Union, The Young Men’s Christian Asso- 
ciation, The Young Women’s Christian 
Association, and kindred organizations are 
asked to unite in promoting and sustain- 
ing the city school. 

A Council formed from representatives 
of each church meets once a quarter to 
determine the general policy, elect a prin- 
cipal, who shall have charge of the school, 
and a small Executive Committee. This 
Committee chooses the corps of teachers; 
the principal directs the working of the 
school week by week. 

The School at Work. More than a 
score of such training schools were work- 
ing successfully in 1913. In 1914 the 
number had risen to fifty, the smallest 
of them enrolling fifty students, the larg- 


est, reported in Topeka, Kansas, number- _ 


ing over four hundred. The school has 
passed beyond the experimental stage, and 
proved itself a practical force in the diff- 
cult undertaking of lifting and maintain- 
ing the standards of graded and depart- 
mental Sunday-school instruction. 

A central church, Association Building, 
or other suitable building, is chosen for 
the regular meeting place. T'wo periods 
of forty-five minutes each, for one eve- 
ning a week, during at least thirty weeks 
of the year, is the plan usually adopted. 

The teachers are found in the public 
schools and colleges, and among the min- 
isters and other studious and successful 
religious leaders of the city. There is 
seldom difficulty in securing a faculty 
which possesses scholarship and teaching 
skill. Necessarily the choice must be 
made with great care. Only teachers able 
to sustain interest and to offer a superior 
type of lesson can keep the attendance of 
their classes, as the members are present 
to secure some information of a special 
sort, or to discover better methods in 


272 


t 


City Training School 





teaching and receive training in them. 

They will not attend regularly unless the 

teaching is thorough, practical, and well 
adapted; unless they themselves are made | 
students and working partners in the | 
class. 

The Officers. The officers should be— 
a president, vice-president, principal or | 
dean, secretary and treasurer. They may _ 
be appointed by the Executive Committee _ 
or elected by the Council. It has been 
found advisable, in some cases, to entrust 
the educational direction to the principal | 
and the administrative direction to the 
president. In some cases the offices of 
principal and president are combined. In 
the larger schools, a superintendent of 
each division, who shall have the supervi- 
sion of its departments, may be elected. 

The first period of forty-five minutes 
should be a general assembly. It should 
be opened with a moment of worship, the 
faculty being seated in a group on the 
platform. The period may be devoted to 
a section of Bible study—historical out- 
lines, character study, or messages of the 
books—or to the problems of Sunday- 
school organization, gradation, manage- 
ment, etc., or the study of child nature 
and the methods of teaching. Or, there 
may be textbook study presented by some 
teacher of ability, with outline method 
and use of note books, 

During the second period. The classes 
should meet in separate classrooms. A 
carefully chosen teacher should be in 
charge of each class. Time—forty-five 
minutes. There should be a moment of 
worship in each class. 

The classes should be divided as follows 
whenever the enrollment is large enough: 


Bible Study Class 
Old Testament 
New Testament 


Elementary 
Teachers of Beginners’ Classes 
Teachers of Primary Classes 
Teachers of Junior Classes 


Secondary 
Teachers of Boys’ Classes 
Teachers of Girls’ Classes 
Teachers of Senior Classes 


Adult ; 
Teachers of Men’s Classes a 
Teachers of Women’s Classes 5 





City Training School 


Special Classes 


Superintendents and Oficers 

For Teachers of Training Classes 

Superintendents of Missionary Instruc- 
tion 

Superintendents of Temperance In- 
struction 


Each class should use a textbook with 
reference reading. ‘There should be dis- 
cussions of reports and theme writing. 
The books for text and reference work 
should be of the more thorough and ac- 
curate type—the best that can be found 
for each department. 

The work may be divided into three 
terms—twelve weeks in the fall, ten weeks 
in winter and ten in spring; or it may 
be divided into two terms, beginning in 
October and completing first term in mid- 
winter, with a vacation time at Christmas. 
There may be a reorganization at the 
beginning of the second term, and the 
work may be completed with some public 
exercise in the late spring. This would 
allow change of texts and subjects, and 
would give time for recruiting classes and 
securing new students. 

The plans for such a city school or 
institute should be laid long in advance. 
‘Some weeks should be devoted to the 
‘selection of teachers, the enrollment of 
students, the awakening of interest and 
the completion of organization. 

The enrollment can be best secured by 
‘Personal appeal. The few who are lead- 
ers can find some one in each of the dif- 
ferent Sunday schools who will secure 
names of teachers and officers in his own 
‘school, A diligent preliminary survey 
and canvass insure a solid and reliable 
working organization. 

_ Success or failure will be determined 
im large measure by the choice of a prin- 
cipal. With a leader of commanding en- 
thusiasm and wide vision, a noble contri- 
bution may be made to the Sunday school 
life of any city. 

The Training School or Institute im 
Town or Village. The City Training 
School or Institute for Sunday-school 
workers is adapted to the town or village 
as well as the city. It is not a union 
training class; its true purpose is work 
far beyond the standards of ordinary 
training classes. The town or village 
with forty or fifty willing students and 












273 


City Training School 


a real leader can organize with every 
promise of success. he large cities have 
found it possible to draw the elect spirits 
of their Sunday schools together to study 
more efficient leadership. 

The Value of such a School. 1. A call 
for teachers of training classes. The need 
has never been felt so keenly as to-day. 
The public school, the high school, stands 
as a daily challenge to the Sunday school, 
demanding higher standards for religious 
work. The problem of training classes is 
not in finding students, but of obtaining 
teachers. 

2. Specialization. The different de- 
partments of the Sunday school stand out 
now with a distinct call for service, very 
different from the easy-going massing of 
children all together in other days. The 
trained department leader who can take 
charge of the teachers and the whole man- 
agement of a Primary, a teen age or any 
department, is doing highly specialized 
work. The training school offers to these 
workers an opportunity for study and dis- 
cussion. 

3. There is a particular need to-day of 
the study of early and later adolescence— 
the teen years. This has been a weak 
place and it is the point receiving the 
most attention at present. (See Adoles- 
cence and its Significance.) 

4. Superintendents and officers. .The 
superintendent cannot be the true leader 
of the modern Sunday school simply by’ 
standing on the platform, announcing 
hymns and ringing the bell. He must 
have an intelligent grasp of the work of 
the whole school. The Training School 
brings together superintendents and 
officers, in order that they may study the 
organization of the school and then, in 
groups, study the special work of each. 
For instance, thousands of organized 
classes in individual schools are losing 
their opportunity because the president is 
doing nothing. If the presidents of the 
classes from a half-dozen schools could 
meet together under some strong leader, 
it would give efficiency to the movement in 
a whole community. (See City Plan of 
Religious Education; New Haven Reli- 
gious Education Federation.) 

5. There is need of advanced Bible 
study. The groups of students who can 
follow special studies can here be called 
together from several churches and follow 


Clark 


a type of work which can seldom be estab- 
lished in any one school. 

6. Such a school draws the workers to- 
gether to study the religious needs of their 
own community, and it binds them in 
fellowship. It offers the inspiration of 
comradeship in work and that spiritual 
uplifting which comes from the vision 
given to those who are drawn together in 
common tasks, 

Expenses. A fee of one or two dollars 
for each student is charged to meet the 
incidental expenses of the school. The 
Sunday schools in some cases pay the fees 
for their own students. A term fee is 
sometimes better than fees for a year. 

Extension ‘Work, Extension work may 
sometimes be carried on to advantage in 
various parts of the city under the direc- 
tion of the Executive Committee of the 
school. It should also promote plans for 
advancing the standards and uplifting the 
ideals of Sunday-school work in the whole 
city. It can promote training classes in 
the individual churches, and can offer 
assistance in regard to organization, grad- 
ation and the use of graded lessons. 

FRANKLIN McELFrresH. 

References: 

Athearn, W. 8S. The Church School. 
(Boston, 1914.) 

Athearn, W. 8S. The City Institute 
for Religious Teachers. (Chicago, 
1914.) 

International Sunday School Asso- 
ciation. Organized Sunday School 
Work in America 1911-14, pp. 269- 
273. (Chicago, 1914.) 

McElfresh, Franklin. The Training 
of Sunday School Teachers and Officers. 
(Boston, 1914.) 


CLARK, SAMUEL WELLMAN (1823- 
92).—Known as the “father of the Sun- 
day-school blackboard.” His childhood 
days were spent in Fayetteville, New York, 
but at thirteen years of age he started to 
New York city with the purpose of seek- 
ing work and an education. Both were 
furnished him in the printing business, 
and he became a scholar and an educator. 
At the age of twenty-one Mr. Clark opened 
a private school for girls in Newark, N. J., 
and later became principal of one of the 
public schools of Newark. 

Mr. Clark carried the pedagogical and 
educational methods of the schoolroom 


274 


q 
Clark 


into the work of the Sunday school, and 
introduced the blackboard as an agency 
of teaching truth to the heart of the pupil 
through the gateway of the eye, as well 
as through the ear. The use of the black- 
board was so skillfully demonstrated that 
opposition was overcome, and it was re- 
cognized as a valuable tool. He was editor 
and publisher (1869-74) of the periodical 
The Sunday School Blackboard (first pub- 
lished under the title The Teacher and 
Child), a magazine containing blackboard 
lessons illustrating both the National and 
the Berean Series of Sunday-school les- 
sons, and later the International Uniform 
Lessons. 

Mr. Clark served twenty-eight years as 
general secretary of the New Jersey Sun- 
day School Association—1861-79—with- 
out compensation, but during the period 
from 1882-92 devoting his full time with 
salary. During the intervening years 
(1879-82) he was engaged on the editorial 
staff of The Sunday School Times. In 
1889 he attended the World’s Sunday 
School Convention in London, and served 
as enrollment secretary; in 1890 he was 
recording secretary of the Sixth Interna- 
tional Sunday School Convention which 
met at Pittsburgh, Pa. Mr. Clark’s death 
occurred on February 27, 1892. 

JOSEPH CLARK. 


CLARK, SARAH MAYHEW (1832- 
1906).—Wife of Samuel Wellman Clark. 
Her own six children proved to be the’ 
normal school and training class in which 
she was prepared for forty years’ effective 
work in the Sunday school. Her success 
in teaching the “infant class” in the Union| 
Street Methodist Church, Newark, N. J.,' 
soon became known, and other Sunday- 
school teachers of small children sought 
her assistance. 

In May, 1870, “The Newark Associa-| 
tion of Infant Class Sunday School’ 
Teachers” was organized and began reg-' 
ular weekly work, of which Mr. Clark was) 
the leader for ten years. 

Finding either the National or Berean’ 
Series of Sunday-school lessons difficult of 
adaptation to the understanding of the 
pupils of the infant class age, Mrs. Clark 
planned a special graded courses of les- 
sons which were based upon familiar Bible 
stories. She thus became a pioneer of 
graded instruction in the Sunday school, 








Class Instruction 


and in organized primary Sunday-school 
work. 

The value of Mrs. Clark’s methods be- 
came known beyond the confines of New- 
ark, and she was called upon to introduce 

_ the new method of primary work into Con- 
necticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, 
Washington, D. C.; and for several years 
at the Chautauqua Institute she instructed 
thousands of teachers how to do effective 
primary work in the Sunday school. 


In 1880, Mrs. Clark removed from 


. Newark, but through her advice the train- 
ing work there was continued. For 
_ twenty-five years she was the President of 
the New York City Primary Union, and 
in its beginnings taught the lesson each 
week. In the history of the Sunday school 
_ Mrs. Clark is known as the “Mother of the 
Primary Union.” She died in March, 
1906, in her seventy-fifth year. 
| JOSEPH CLARK. 


_ CLASS INSTRUCTION.—Srz Cuass 
_ManaGEMENT; Hanpwork IN THE S. S.; 
|Lesson, PLan OF THE; LESSON PRE- 
| VIEWS; ReaDING THE Lesson; REVIEWS. 


CLASS MANAGEMENT.—What are the 
marks of a well-managed class? Cer- 
tainly it will not attract the attention 
of other classes or persons in its vicinity 
by disorderly conduct; every movement 
will be performed quickly and quietly; 
‘the pupils will do anything the teacher 
may ask, promptly, exactly, and with 
an evident desire to please; there will be 
constant and complete attention to what 
is being said or done in the class itself; 
_ the teacher will be treated with courtesy 
and politeness similar to that which he 
/ himself gives to the pupils; finally, what- 
ever may be the outward apearance of 
the class, it is mismanaged if the teacher 
does not succeed in accomplishing the re- 
sults which it is the function of a good 
teacher to achieve in the child’s charac- 
ter. If a teacher can speak affirmatively 
on these matters about his own class, he 
‘May consider it to be well-managed. 

' Obviously then the teacher must, first 
of all, be quite clear as to his aim; he 
cannot manage his class well if, when he 
meets it, he does not know what he wants 
to do, and how he wants to do it. If he 
‘aims at nothing, the class will arrive at 
nothing. He must have a deliberate 














| 
\ A 


; 
| 
: t 


275 


~never expect to manage a class well: 


Class Management 


aim. This, of course, means complete 
and careful preparation. An interested 
teacher makes an interested class. If the 
children are uninterested and inattentive 
let the teacher examine himself; if his 
preparation is complete and the class is 
still out-of-hand there must be something 
wrong in the handling of it. (See Dis- 
cipline. ) 

Years of experience in dealing with 
young professional teachers leave us with 
the impression that when they fail it is 
largely because they do not see the class. 
Some will stand before it, and talk to the 
wall behind the class, or to the floor, in- 
stead of looking straight into the eyes of 
the children and expecting the pupils to 
respond with their eyes. Others make 
the mistake of talking to a section of the 
class, ignoring the rest; then when the 
neglected part begins to amuse itself in 
its own way, the teacher turns to it, and 
neglects another section. The successful 
manager sees all the children all the time, 
and makes every child realize that the 
teacher is engaged with him, personally, 
from start to finish. That this is not im- 
possible may be seen by watching any 
successful teacher. 

Of course to see a class as a whole, the 
teacher must choose his position, unosten- 
tatiously placing himself so that he covers 
the whole class. And this must be done 
politely—the children never getting the 
idea that they are being watched. 

There are certain teachers who need 
(1) 
The teacher who thinks too little of the 
children, talks down to them, regards them 
as inferiors; (2) the teacher who has no 
dignity, acts foolishly before the children, 
and allows them to be unduly familiar 
with him; (3) the teacher who attempts 
to buy order and attention; (4) the 
teacher who nags, or attempts to bully, 
the class; (5) the teacher who eapects the 
class to be unruly. The fact is that each 
of these teachers employs his own pecul- 
iar manner to conceal the lack of matter 
and method due to his own indolence or 
incapacity, and an ordinary child instantly 
perceives this. 

There are many details of class man- 
agement that one learns only by experi- 
ence. The children must be comfortable ; 
the subjects dealt with must be such as 
concern them; the teacher must not be 


Class Names 


inferior to them in character even if he 
be so in attainment; he must let it be seen, 
without mentioning the fact, that nothing 
in the way of disorder or inattention will 
escape his eye, or will be tolerated, and 
that nothing in the way of interest will 
be overlooked or fail to be preaiven sympa- 
thetically. 

It should not be impossible in a Sun- 
day-school class to promote esprit de corps, 
and to create a high tone. The class 
should be an entity, feeling itself as a 
class, not merely as a number of indi- 
viduals. Then a class tradition can be 
cultivated; it may come to be “under- 
stood” that in this class bad manners do 
not appear; not that the children are 
superior prigs, but that any one who in- 
troduces an element of disorder is doing 
a shockingly unusual thing with which 
no one will sympathize. The contagion of 
numbers is very marked among children; 
they are especially open to suggestion from 
a common life; group-consciousness is 
pronounced, and individuals can be led 
instinctively to wish to contribute more 
than others to the good reputation of the 
class, and to be specially loyal to the rules 
it has been found necessary to lay down. 

A statement of all that one ought to 
be to manage a class successfully is some- 
what disheartening; yet one must aim at 
the ideal. The teacher must be never 
in doubt as to the right course to take— 
must never say “I have a mind to—,” 
but must firmly exercise power. He must 
be true to his own orders, making them 
quite explicit and seeing that they are 
obeyed. Never allow an act of disobedi- 
ence, even of omission, to go unseen. He 
must be self-reliant ; quite just; extremely 
kind, and sympathetic and patient. It is 
well to associate with the children in their 
happy moments. 

Above everything, see all; not merely 
what every member of the class does, but 
what is passing beneath the surface, what 
is happening in the mind, what is develop- 
ing in the soul. (See Pedagogy; Psy- 
hae J. Haton FEASEY. 

CLASS NAMES.—The class name is one 
of the popular methods promoting spirit 
in organized classes. In schools, athletic 
teams, ball clubs, regiments, and the like, 
a characteristic name is highly prized. 
The popular ball teams of the day are 


276 





known almost exclusively by the slang 
names given them by their admirers, 
With boys’ and girls’ classes, and with 
classes of young people, the name often 
becomes a watchword which inspires class 
loyalty. With boys’ classes, names with 
a suggestion of humor, or with a chal- 
lenging sound, are popular; girls’ classes 
are apt to choose names with a view to 
sentiment or beauty; classes of men will 
bear, probably, the names of chosen lead- 
ers, Bible characters, heroes of Christian 
history, some popular teacher, or local re- 
ligious leader. Mr. Marshall Hudson gave 
to the classes inspired by his leadership 
the name of Baraca—the valley of bless- 
ing. The women’s classes in the Baraca 
movement took the name of Philathea. 
(See Baraca-Philathea Bible Classes.) A 
class of Seniors which has organized many 
others took the name of Agoga—leader- 
ship, or the trained life. (See Agoga and 
Amona Bible Classes. ) 

Among the popular names for mixed 
classes are—Comrades of the Cross, The 
Friendly Class, Front Line Class, Front 
Rank Class, Golden Rule, Heralds of the 
King, Loyal Legion, Messengers of the 
King, Research Class, The Twentieth 
Century; for women’s classes—Daughters 
of the Covenant, Daughters of the King, 
Gleaners, Loyal Daughters, Priscillas, 
Inner Circle, Bethany; for men’s classes 
—The Business Men’s Bible Class, 
Friendly Fellows, Gideon Bible Class, 
Knights of the Red Circle, Loyal Brother- 
hood, The Busy Man’s Class. 

FRANKLIN McELFrEsH. 


CLASS PINS.—The Sunday-school class 
often adopts the method of all lodges and 
orders by the use of a class pin. Its value 
as an aid in promoting a fellow-feeling 
can never be doubted by any one who has 
seen the fraternity spirit in school or col- 
lege. The badge of the modern class 
organization is used to cement the mem- 
bers in close friendship, and to secure 
loyal loyalty to the class. A pin which 
has an emblem and displays the class name 
and motto or color, or has some definite 
significance, is one of the most successful 
means of binding groups together; espe- 
cially in pupils of Junior or Intermediate 
years, ‘There is a satisfaction in display- 
ing a class pin which should not be 
neglected by those who would adapt the 


‘ 
4 
: 
We. 


| 


Classification of the Library 










organization of the Sunday school to the 
teal wants of young life. | 

The Use of Pins for the Divisions of the 
Sunday School. The pin worn by teachers 
and pupils of the Elementary Division 
has a white center encircled with green; 
the pin of the Secondary Division—the 
‘teen years—a white center encircled with 
blue; the Adult Division a white center 
encircled with red; the Teacher Training 
‘Division a white center encircled with 
gold; and the Home Division a white 
center encircled with purple. The pin 
of the Adult Department has been a 
jwonderful means of advancing fellowship 
‘among men; it is a frequent means of 
recognition among strangers, and of pro- 
moting class loyalty. 
FRANKLIN McELFreEsH. 


_ CLASSIFICATION OF THE SUNDAY- 
SCHOOL LIBRARY.—Szxr Lisrary, THE 
| CLASSROOMS.—Srr. ARCHITECTURE, 
8. S. 


COBB DIVINITY SCHOOL.—Sexz Brn- 
LicaL INSTRUCTION BY CORRESPONDENCE. 





COLLECTION, THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
'—SzE Finances, S. 8.; Sunpay ScHOooL, 
‘Cost OF THE. 


_ COLLEGE STUDENTS AND THE SUN- 
DAY SCHOOL.—College students are be- 
coming increasingly interested in the 
Sunday school. Of the 37,336 women 
students and 47,157 men students en- 
Tolled in voluntary Bible study groups in 
colleges and preparatory schools (1913- 
(14), 21,857 women and 24,836 men were 
in church classes. College students are 
‘also finding in Sunday schools one very 
important field for voluntary community 
‘Service, especially in connection with the 
organized classes of boys or girls, with 
their social, athletic, and other activities. 
‘The students of one college are conduct- 
‘Ing Sunday schools in seven centers, and 
sixty students are working as superin- 
tendents and teachers. Upper class stu- 
dents are also leading groups of under 
classmen. These leaders are usually 
under expert supervision” and are receiy- 
Ing training both in the principles of suc- 









Q°% 


% 


College Students and the §S. S. 


cessful leadership and the actual conduct 
of their groups. 

The larger recognition of the need of 
Sunday-school work especially adapted to 
students makes it possible to relate an 
increasing number of college students to 
the Sunday school. The very experiences 
of college students make their problems 
different and more pressing than those 
of young people of the same age in the 
ordinary community. The sudden change 
from the discipline of home and the 
influence of local community sentiment 
to the freedom of the college environment 
immediately brings out acutely various 
practical questions of morals and religion. 
Science and philosophy raise numerous 
problems in regard to the Bible and reli- 
gion. Many students thus pass through a 
period of religous doubt and reconstruc- 
tion, The university spirit of independ- 
ent investigation leads many of them to 
wish to face these problems for them- 
selves. Again, there is the opportunity 
for academic training in the Bible and 
other subjects in the field of religion. 
Increasingly it will be possible to offer 
such academic training to college stu- 
dents which is not generally available to 
other young persons. 

These considerations have led those in- 
terested in college voluntary study to feel 
that college students should have studies 
especially adapted and different from 
those of young people of the same age in 
the community. This means classes in 
the Sunday school composed exclusively 
of students, and where there is a suffi- 
cient number, a department; leaders hav- 
ing the student viewpoint; classes of the 
discussional type in order that students 
may be given the opportunity to form 
personal convictions and make decisions; 
special studies adapted to the psycholog- 
ical characteristics, interests, and prob- 
lems of students, and personal guidance 
in daily Bible readings, weekly study and 
group discussion. 

Accordingly the Sunday School Council 
(1913) took the following action: 


“A subcommittee of this Committee has 
been working in codperation with a Com- 
mission representing the Young Men’s 
Christian Association, the Young Women’s 
Christian Association, biblical instructors 
in colleges and universities, and headmasters 
in secondary schools in the consideration of 
the problem of working out a systematic and 


College Students and the §. S.. 


progressive course of Bible study for stu- 
dents, both for curriculum study and for 
voluntary classes, looking to a more perfect 
correlation of the work of Bible study and 
instruction as carried on in the Sunday 
schools, the Christian Associations, and the 
higher institutions of learning. We are in 
entire sympathy with this effort, and we are 
convinced that so far as the Sunday school 
is related to this student element, students 
should be provided for as a distinct group, 
and that in school communities student de- 
partments should be organized in the local 
Sunday schools, and special courses should 
be provided adapted to this class of young 
people whose training makes it possible for 
them to do more efficient work than the 
average young people of a corresponding 
age, and whose problems and whose intel- 
lectual and religious interests are peculiar. 
We recommend that the Committee on 
Lesson Courses of this Council be requested 
to codperate with the Commission above 
referred to and report results to the Coun- 
cil at its next session, or to the Executive 
Committee.” 


Following this action, a Subcommittee 
on College Courses of the Sunday School 
Council of Evangelical Denominations 
(g. v.), and the Committee on Voluntary 
Study of the Council of North American 
Student Movements (representing the 
Student Young Men’s and Young Wom- 
en’s Christian Associations and the Stu- 
dent Volunteer Movement), with the co- 
operation of various other leaders ac- 
quainted with the student field, made a 
fresh study of the college needs and have 
prepared the outline for a new graded 
four years’ voluntary study curriculum 
for the use of nonacademic classes both 
in and outside of the Sunday school. This 
curriculum is based on the psychological 
characteristics and dominant interests 
and problems of students. It combines 
the study of the Bible with that of 
foreign missions and North American 
problems, and is planned to supplement 
study in the academic curriculum in the 
field of religion. These Committees are 
preparing detailed outlines for the work 
of each year. In short, this means prac- 
tically the suggesting of graded lessons 
for college students. Several of the de- 
nominations and the North American 
Student Movements are codperating in 
the preparation of textbooks based on 
these outlines. Student Standards of 
Action and Christian Standards in Life, 
Part one and Part two of the first year 
have thus been prepared (1915). 


278 


of 
‘ar. 
A 
“ 


College Students and the S. §, 


The local churches in college towns, 
and the denominations at large, are tak- 
ing a greater interest. Classes more 
adapted to college students are now being 
provided, and led by ministers, student 
pastors, professors in Bible chairs, and 
other professors, graduates in the com- 
munity, and able students, they are at- 
tracting an increasing number of stu- 
dents. 

The North American Student Chris- 
tian Associations have made the volun- 
tary study of the Bible, foreign missions, 
and North American problems one of 
their main lines of activity. Hach year in 
this work there is a larger codperation be- 
tween the local women’s and men’s Asso- 
ciations and the Sunday schools in the 
college town. During the first years these 
voluntary study groups were held ve 
largely outside of the church. While the 
local Associations have possibly been more 
tardy than, necessary in recognizing the 
possibility of a closer relation to the Sun- 
day school, it is doubtful if the movement 
would have started except from outside 
the Sunday school. When this wide- 
spread student Bible study movement 
commenced, the Sunday school was con- 
sidered largely for children, and most cole 
lege students felt they were beyond that 
age. urther, it was before the days 
of the graded Sunday school, and most 
local churches were unwilling to make 
special provision for students. The Stu- 
dent Christian Associations sought to 
reach these students through small dis- 
cussional classes, following the natural 
social groups of dormitories, fraternities, 
and college classes. Special study texts 
were prepared and leaders adapted to stu- 
dents were provided. In this way stu- 
dents were won for voluntary Bible and 
mission study, and a great service has 
been rendered the church. 

The policy of the Student Christian 
Associations during the last few years has 
been to help in allying just as many stu- 
dents as possible with local Sunday schools 
which are willing to make provision for 
work adapted to students. (See Young 
Men’s Christian Association and the S. S.) 
For instance, among the men students 
reported in Sunday-school classes (1913- 
14) almost one-half were in church classes 
promoted directly by the Association. 
This does not include many more Asso- 


College Students and the §. S. 


ciations which reported they were codp- 


erating in Bible study within the local 


churches. The codperative work nation- 
ally on graded studies for college students 
is making this local codperation more easy 


and effective. 


If the voluntary study is to be the most 


effective it must be planned to reach the 


Christian Associations will join. 


life of the entire student body. This 
means united and codperative effort in 
which the churches and the Student 
The 


first efforts will be centered on reaching 
every last student possible for the church 
classes, but for the present, at least, the 
- outside-church groups must be continued. 
_ These usually meet a different hour from 
_ the church classes, and are conducted at 


convenient centers in rooming houses, 


boarding clubs, fraternity houses, ete. 


Through them large numbers of uninter- 
ested students are reached who cannot as 
yet be won for the church classes. They 
also provide for the study of foreign mis- 


sions and North American problems, sup- 


plementing that offered in the Sunday 
school. In this way 24,250 men and 
15,479 women were enrolled (1914) in 


_yoluntary Bible study groups outside the 


} 





church, and 16,000 men and 18,000 
women were enrolled in supplementary 
voluntary groups for the study of foreign 
missions and North American problems. 
With statesmanlike planning the volun- 
tary study may be made to play its full 
part in touching the life of the entire col- 
lege or university. 

The relating of the college students to 


the Sunday school during undergraduate 
days is of largest significance to the 
church. The thousands of students in col- 
_leges and preparatory schools are training 
for future leadership. They are needed 
in local communities in all parts of the 


nation, as members of Sunday-school 


_¢lasses, to help bring to backward com- 
munities the ideal of a modern graded 
_ Sunday school, and to be part of the more 
_ adequate and better-trained teaching force 
_ which the graded Sunday school demands. 


Adequate training in the Bible, religious 


pedagogy, and kindred subjects in the 
_ field of religion, is needed in the academic 
curriculum for these future Sunday- 
school workers, 
being offered. But there is also need of 
_ the voluntary classes and voluntary serv- 


Increasingly these are 


279 


Combination Service 


ice. The voluntary study classes are giv- 
ing the students opportunity to come to 
personal conviction which results in ac- 
tion. Membership in Sunday-school 
classes, and Sunday-school teaching dur- 
ing the undergraduate period, are bring- 
ing to thousands of college students such 
a conviction of the importance of Sunday- 
school work as leads them to ally them- 
selves with it after graduation, and are 
furnishing theoretical and practical train- 
ing in preparation for such future activ- 


ity. H. S. Ex.iorv. 


COLLEGIATE PROHIBITION ASSOCI- 
ATION.—Serr TEMPERANCE TEACHING IN 
THE SN. S. 


COLLIER, WILLIAM (1771-1843).— 
Baptist clergyman. Born in Scituate, 
Mass., October 11, 1771. He was grad- 
uated from Brown University in 1797. 
While a student at Brown University he 
opened a Sabbath school in Pawtucket, 
R. I., for the employees of Mr. Samuel 
Slater’s factory village. He studied 
theology with Dr. Maxcy, and was or- 
dained in Boston in 1799. He served 
brief pastorates in Newport, R. L, and 
New York city. He spent sixteen years 
as pastor of the First Baptist Church in 
Charlestown, Mass., when delicate health 
caused him to resign. He was appointed 
“minister at large” in Boston where he 
labored effectually. He was editor of the 
National Philanthropist, and later of the 
Baptist Preacher. He died in Boston, 
Mass., March 9, 1843. It was said of Mr. 
Collier: “The sphere that he filled was 
not large, but he filled it well.” 

S. G. AYRES. 


COLT, SARAH.—This little girl of 
eleven years of age is said to have been the 
means of starting the first Sunday school 
in the state of New Jersey at. Paterson, 
in 1794. The school was for the benefit 
of the woskers in a calico factory. 

S. G. AYREs. 


COMBINATION SERVICE.—This serv- 
ice seeks so to relate the Sunday school 
and public worship that the entire Sun- 
day school will be in the preaching service 
and the entire congregation will be in the 
Sunday school. This is accomplished by 
combining the two into one service which 
occupies about one hour and forty-five 


Combination Service 


minutes. The following order of worship 
will illustrate: 


1. Organ Voluntary 
2. Hymn 
3. Prayer 
4. Doxology or Gloria 
5. Anthem 
6. Invocation, Offertory, Choir 
?. Announcements 
8. Hymn 
9. Sermon 
10. Hymn 
11. Bible Study 
12. Reports 
13. Hymn 
14. Benediction 


For the sake of clearer explanation the 
program is divided into three sections. 
The essential element is that of the length 
of the service. The first section should 
occupy from thirty to thirty-five minutes. 
The second from twenty-five to thirty. 
The third from thirty-five to forty. In 
every other respect than that of time, the 
different sections may be varied to suit the 
congregation’s form’ of worship. ‘To be 
successful, the preaching service must pre- 
cede the Sunday school. In some sections 
many adults will not leave home to attend 
Sunday school first, but they will come 
to the preaching service, and when present, 
it is not difficult to hold them to the 
school. 

The crisis in the service is at the time 
the pastor announces the hymn following 
the sermon. He should not dismiss the 
congregation, but should kindly persuade 
all to remain to the Sunday school. At 
this point the superintendent assumes 
charge of the school. He calls the school 
to order at the close of the study period 
-and closes the session. The pastor pro- 
nounces the benediction. 

Advantages of the Plan, It trains the 
children in the church. The Sunday 
school thus holds them in the church and 
not apart from it, as the separate school 
sometimes seems to do. 

It tends to keep the adults in the Sun- 
day school. The shorter public service 
does not tire them, and they are willing 
to remain for Bible study. 

Tt multiplies Adult Bible classes by in- 
creasing the number of adults in the 
school. It increases their efficiency by 
giving them the benefit of both services. 


280 


Committee on Religious Education 


It holds young men and boys to the 
church and school. The parents are pres- 


: 


ent and the young people cannot outgrow 3 


such a school. 


It promotes evangelism in the school. 


The pupils witness the reception of mem- 
bers, the administering of baptism, are 
present at the communion, hear the appeal 
of the Gospel, are sensitive to the atmos- 
phere of reverence and worship; all of 
which causes them to want to become 
members of the church and to lead a 
Christian life. 

It cultivates reverence in the Sunday 
school. They go from worship to the 
study of the Word and carry the spirit of 
reverence with them. This is a very 
marked effect. (See Reverence in the 
Say 


It creates and maintains enthusiasm by 


greatly increasing the number attending 
both services. 

It promotes family religion by permit- 
ting the family to attend the church sery- 
ice together, sit together, and return home 
together. 

It enables families to have Sunday 
dinner at noon. Permits hotel and board- 
ing house residents to attend church and 
return for the meal. 

It gives a long Sunday afternoon for 


family life or rest, and increases the at- 


tendance at the evening service on that 
account, D. H. Qtass 


COMENIUS, JOHN AMOS.—Srr Mo- 


RAVIAN CHURCH (UNITAS FRATRUM). 


COMMENCEMENT IN THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL.—SrE GRADUATION AND GEaD- 
UATE COURSES. 


COMMISSION MOVEMENT.—S EE 
Protestant EpiscopaL CHURCH. 


COMMITTEE ON RELIGIOUS EDU- 


CATION.—Behind every efficient Sunday 
school there is either one person or a group 
of persons who are its motive power, its 
inspiration. 
center of influence the more substantial 
will be the character of the school. 


The more permanent that 


With 


the purpose of establishing and maintain- © 
ing such a permanent council a Com- 


mittee on Religious Education is sug-— 


gested and proposed. 












Committee on Religious Education 


I. Name. The Committee on Religious 
Education (inserting the specific name 
of the local church or Sunday school) is 
a name both appropriate and easily under- 
stood. 

II. Membership. The members of this 

Committee should consist of three, five, 
seven, or more persons according to the 
size and character of the school. They 
should be (a) the pastor; (b) the director 
of religious education (if there be one) ; 
(c) the general superintendent of the 
Sunday school; (d) the departmental 
principals; (e) the director of music; (f) 
the secretary of the school; (g) the clerk 
of the church; (h) the chairman of the 
Committee on Religious Education. 
/ The character of the duties that fall 
upon this Committee as the responsible 
head of the Sunday school requires that 
jits members should be made as permanent 
‘as any other regularly elected officials of 
the church. 

III. Qualifications for Membership. 1. 


tions give them a place on this Com- 
mittee were chosen for this duty because 
of their competence and training in that 
particular phase of Sunday-school activ- 
ity. 

%. They should be in full sympathy with 
the best ideals of Sunday-school efficiency, 
jand also in hearty accord with every 
effort to codrdinate the work of the Sun- 
day school with all the other activities of 
the church. 

_ 3. The method of appointment of mem- 
bers of the Committee should be so elastic 
as to allow the church to take advantage 
of any newcomers or professional edu- 
cators who might be available. Let 
nothing be iron-clad in methods of finding 
and drafting new helpers. 

4, Use the very best material of the 
ehurch whether men or women. 

_ IV. Purpose. The purpose of this Com- 
mittee is to provide a small well-equipped 
body of persons upon whom shall rest 
the full responsibility for the policy and 
general conduct of the Sunday school. 

/ V. Duties. 1. To act as a kind of an 
official council on all matters that pertain 
to the life and activities of the Sunday 
school in the local church. 

_ 2. To determine the whole range of ac- 
tivities of the school, the needs, the mate- 
vial to meet these needs, and the best 


| 


281 


It is assumed that the persons whose posi- - 


Committee on Religious Education 


method of guiding the school in the proper 
lines of work and service. 

3. To pass upon the qualifications of 
teachers, to recommend for appointment 
on the teaching staff those who are fully 
qualified to render the service required, 
and where advisable, appoint such teach- 
ers. 

4, To exercise some personal supervi- 
sion over the general and special work of 
the school, to ascertain whether instruc- 
tions are being carried out, and whether 
the methods adopted achieve success in 
the results obtained—but to do all this 
tactfully and with as little show of author- 
ity as possible, 

5. To maintain close fraternal rela- 
tions between denominational and inter- 
denominational agencies in Sunday-school 
work, so as to take advantage of any new 
material or methods which may become 
available. 

6. To report in detail to the church at 
each annual meeting the statistical and 
other tangible results of the year’s work. 

VI. Organization. The members of the 
Committee should take their positions by 
virtue of their respective offices. To these 
positions they are usually elected annually 
to serve one year. The Committee should 
have a chairman and secretary, and at 
least the following standing subcom- 
mittees: (a) Order of Service: To study 
and recommend to the Committee for 
adoption the best order of service that the 
size and departmental arrangement of the 
school permits, 

(b) Courses of Study: To examine and 
recommend to the Committee that course 


‘or those courses of lessons which seem 


best adapted to the abilities and capacities 
of the teachers and pupils of the school. 

(c) Social Service: 'To plan and super- 
vise methods of expressional activity for 
community betterment. 

(d) Recreation: To devise and oversee 
the athletics, play, picnics, and other 
recreational activities of the school. 

There might be such other committees 
as one on each of the following items, viz. : 
—music, missions, library, decorations, 
follow-up schemes, honors and prizes. 

VII. Powers. 1. Each local church 
should grant to the Committee on Reli- 
gious Education such authority as said 
church may deem wise. 

2. Its powers should be limited to the 


Communion, Child’s 


Sunday school, to investigating, to plan- 
ning, to determining and to supervising 
the entire activity of the school. 

3. As a Standing Committee, it should 
have authority to present to the church 
at any regular meeting recommendations 
for any action which it considers wise 
for the improvement in any way of the 
general management of the school. 

4, It should have authority to sit in 
council with other bodies of a similar 
character, and to report upon any meas- 
ures which seem to commend themselves. 

VIII. Meetings and Quorum. 1. The 
Committee shall meet at least once a 
month, and shall follow a regular order 
of business, which it has adopted for 
itself. Special meetings may be called by 
the chairman either on his own initiative, 
or at the written request of any two mem- 
bers. 

2. A majority of the members should 
constitute a quorum for the transaction 


of business. Ira M. Price. 
See The Church School; Organization, 
hilt 


Reference: 

Folder No. 2 of Commission on Reli- 
gious and Moral Education of the 
Northern Baptist Convention (1913). 


COMMUNION, THE CHILD’S.—SeEsE 
Cuinp’s CoMMUNION. 


COMMUNITY SUPERINTENDENT.— 
Ste New Haven ReEuicious EpucatTion 
FEDERATION; Retigious EpucaTtion As- 
SOCIATION. 


COMPLETELY GRADED SERIES.— 
Srr BIBLE Stupy UNIon LEssons. 


CONDUCT.—SrEe AcTIVITY AND ITS 
PuacE IN Rexicious EpucatTion; Moran 
AND Reuicious Epucation, TEsTs OF 
EFFIcIeNcy IN; Motives, THE APPEAL 
TO, IN Retigious EpucaTIon ; PRIZES AND 
Rewarps; PsycHoLoGy AND PEDAGOGY, 
CoNTRIBUTIONS OF, TO THE WORK OF THE 
8S. 8.3;  Pusnic ScHoors (UNITED 
StTaTEs), Mora INSTRUCTION IN THE. 


CONFIRMATION.—The ceremony 
called confirmation is used by several 
branches of the Christian Church to sup- 
plement or complete baptism, either in- 
fant or adult. In some churches it is 


282 


Confirmation 


held to be a sacrament, in others a 
rite. The word in its technical sense is 
not used in the New Testament, but ap- 
pears about the fifth century. It is de- 
rived from the Latin confirmare, to estab- 
lish. Its primary reference is to the 
strengthening or confirming of character 
through the gift of the Holy Spirit, this 
being the point of emphasis wherever con- 
firmation is regarded as a sacrament. It 
is also considered to refer to the ratifying 
or confirming of baptismal vows. Con- 
firmation is practiced by both Greek and 
Roman Catholics, by Lutherans, by the 
Church of England, the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church in America, and a few other 
minor bodies. 

History. Both the main emphasis in 
confirmation, 1. e., the gift of the Spirit, 
and its ancient symbol, the laying on 
of hands (still practiced by Anglicans 
and Lutherans, though superseded some 
centuries ago in the Roman usage by a 
tap on the cheek) connect the ceremony 
with the Biblical custom of conferring 
a blessing through the laying on of hands, 
Both Catholics and Anglicans appeal to 
Acts 8:14-17 and Hebrews 6:2 as warrant 
for the usage. In earliest Christian times, 
the bishop being present at all baptisms 
and the candidates being mostly adults, it 
was customary immediately after baptism 
to anoint the candidate with oil, and for 
the bishop to place his hands upon him in 
blessing. 

When increase of baptisms rendered it 
less possible for the bishop always to be 
present, two different procedures arose. 
In the East, where greater emphasis was 
laid upon the anointing, the bishop re- 
served to himself the consecration of the 
oil, but allowed it to be applied to the 
candidate by any presbyter. Hence, to- 
day, in the Eastern Church, infants are 
baptized, confirmed, and receive com- 
munion, all in a single service, which is 
conducted by a presbyter. In the West, 
however, the emphasis remaining on the 
laying on of hands, confirmation was. 
separated from baptism and was reserved 
for the bishop’s convenience, being ulti- 
mately deferred until the child’s eighth 
year, or even longer. At the Reforma- 
tion many Protestants, owing to the revul- 
sion against sacramental ideas, abandoned 
confirmation entirely, and substituted an 
educational process based upon the cate- 


Pe. 


Confirmation 


chism, and culminating in a formal ad- 
mission of the candidate to the holy com- 
munion, after due examination before the 
congregation. 

Luther (q. v.) in spite of harsh criti- 
cism of confirmation as a sacrament, did 
| not oppose it so long as it was thoroughly 
understood to be purely a human inven- 
tion. It was only in Hesse, however, so 
_far as Germany was concerned, that a 
, definite rite of confirmation was adopted, 
| chiefly through the influence of Martin 
' Bucer, about 1538-39. The influence of 
Spener (1635-1705) (q. v.) and the Pie- 
tists secured a far wider adoption, and 
| the rite is now universal in the Lutheran 
Church. Meantime, in England, the 
/ancient custom of confirmation, with a 
service in English, was continued, though 
| the sacramental conception of it was 
| abandoned. 

Significance. Views of confirmation 
have been extremely varied since the 
Reformation. The Roman Church re- 
gards it as the second of the seven sacra- 
ments, attributing it, by help of an argu- 
ment from tradition, to Christ’s com- 
mand. It is considered to confer a grace 
ad robur (for strengthening), distinct 
from that conferred in baptism. The use 
‘of the “chrism” (anointing with oil) is 
held to take the place of the ancient lay- 
ing on of hands as a symbol, and the 
|bishop’s tap upon the cheek of the candi- 
date is to remind the latter that he must 
fight a good fight in Christ’s name. The 
‘Latins have thus separated confirmation 
from baptism on the one hand (as effect- 
‘ing spiritual growth where baptism gives 
‘spiritual birth), and from the holy com- 
‘Munion of the other (in that it is no 
longer considered a gateway to the latter). 
Children in the Roman Church to-day re- 
ceive their first communion several years 
before confirmation, and on the ground of 
their baptism. 

_ Among Lutherans confirmation is con- 
sidered partly as a necessary consequent to 
infant baptism. The Lutherans main- 
tain that little children are received into 
God’s covenant of grace in holy bap- 
tism., 

__ In accordance with Christ’s command 
they have been instructed in the word of 
God and have been taught the principles 
of the Christian religion. In their con- 
firmation they acknowledge as their own 














283 


Confirmation 


the faith which their parents and sponsors 
professed in their name when they were 
baptized, and are received into the fellow- 
ship of the congregation and admitted to 
the holy communion. The act itself con- 
sists of the confession, the benediction, the 
laying on of hands, and the prayer of the 
congregation. The sacramental idea is en- 
tirely rejected. 

The conception of confirmation preva- 
lent in the Anglican Churches is closely 
related to the Lutheran, but gives greater 
emphasis to the spiritual blessing received. 
There is an inclination toward the sacra- 
mental position though the ceremony is 
distinctly called a “rite.”~ The candidate 
also “ratifies and confirms” his baptismal 
vows, and is not admitted to communion 
until he is either confirmed, or “ready and 
desirous to be confirmed.” 

Usages and Ritual. Both Greeks and 
Romans employ the “chrism,” but the 
Greeks anoint not only the forehead, as 
in the Roman use,‘ but the eyes, ears, nose, 
and feet as well. A special service for 
confirmation is found in the rituals of 
all the churches. Among Romans and 
Anglicans the bishops alone confirm. 
The Roman Church requires a sponsor 
and each candidate is allowed to choose 
an additional Christian name which is 
conferred upon him in the service. The 
Greek Church confirms at baptism, even 
infants; the Roman usually at ten to 
twelve years of age, though there is a pres- 
ent tendency toward a still earlier age; 
the Lutheran and Anglican usually from 
twelve to sixteen. In each of the three 
latter churches considerable catechetical 
instruction precedes, but Romans and 
Lutherans are more systematic in this 
respect than Anglicans. 

Educational Value. Quite apart from 
any question of spiritual gifts received, 
confirmation is justified as a practical 
matter by its value for Christian nurture 
and education. By using it as supple- 
mentary to infant baptism, the church 
has the advantage of inspiring its children 
from the very first with a sense of mem- 
bership and yet requiring at the age of 
discernment a personal acceptance of 
Christian standards of life. The prepara- 
tion of candidates is a most important 
feature. It offers exceptional opportunity 
for instruction in the peculiar confessional 
life of a church, and in devotional and 


Confirmation 


spiritual standards. Dealing immediately 
with character and the inner life con- 
firmation instruction forms a complement 
to the necessarily more intellectual teach- 
ing of religion in the public schools of 
Germany, and even in the Sunday schools 
of America. It puts the pastor into more 
intimate touch with the younger members 
of his flock. Unless carried back by dog- 
matic reasons into the years of childhood 
proper (a most undesirable tendency), 
confirmation coincides with the early 
period of adolescence in which the natural 
psychological development of the individ- 
ual tends to produce a new and larger 
self, with deepened ethical and social out- 
look. (See Adolescence and its Signifi- 
cance.) ‘The instruction and spiritual im- 
pression of confirmation help to direct 
and fix this new self, and should therefore 
be a feature of the opening period of 
adolescence. 

In addition, one may well believe that 
from both the psychological and spiritual 
standpoints new and decisive efforts of 
will, called to a climax by confirmation, 
receive as their corresponding reward a 
special influx of spiritual ability. Thus 
the century-long appreciation of confirma- 
tion as a strengthening from above ap- 
pears as a true insight into the divine 
method of character-building. 

LeEsTER BRADNER. 

References: 

Anglican Churches: 

Hall, A.C. A. Confirmation. Lon- 
don, 1902.) 

Jackson. Hustory of Confirmation. 

Roman Catholic Church: 

Catholic Encyclopedia. Confirma- 
tion, by T. B. Scannell. (New York.) 

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique ; 
ed. by Vacant-Mangenot. Confirma- 
tion. (Paris.) 

Wilhelm, Joseph, and Scannell, T. B. 
Manual of Catholic Theology. Vol. 2, 
pp. 393-400. (London, 1898.) 

German Lutheran Church: 

Caspari, W. Konfirmation. (1897.) 

Lorenz. Der Konfirmation-Unter- 
recht. (1911.) (Survey of suggested 
instruction in German.) 

The nature and doctrine of confirma- 
tion are still under discussion both in 
Germany and England: 

Herzog. Real-Encyklopddie. 
ticle by Caspari. 


Ar- 


284 Congregational Church mall 


Mason, A. J. Relation of Confirma- 
tion to Baptism. (London, 1893.) i, 


CONFUCIANISM.—Srx Cuina, Mora 
AND ReE.Liaious EpucaTion IN; Non- 
CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES; RELIGIOUS Epu- 
CATION, ANCIENT, HISTORY OF. 


CONGREGATIONAL BROTHERHOOD. 
—SrEE BroTHERHOOD MOVEMENT. 


CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH (ENG. 
LAND), SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK OF 
THE.—The Congregational churches as 
a whole showed early zeal in the foun- 
dation of Sunday schools. In the Story 
of English Congregationalism the Rey. 
T. Hooper says: “To the credit of the 
Independent churches they were among 
the first to perceive the worth of the Sun- 
day school and to avail themselves of it.” 
At the same time it must be recognized 
that the Sunday schools which first sprang 
up were the products of individual effort 
rather than of collective action. Their 
connection with the church was unregu-— 
lated, and the responsibility of the church — 
for their welfare unfelt. They were re- 
garded as a vital addition, or otherwise, i | 
the work of the church, according to the 
attitude taken by the authorities as to the 
importance of this new development of | 
Christian activity. 

As the Trust Deeds of some churches _ 
bear evidence, the attitude in the earlier 
years of the movement was in some cases _ 
actually hostile. In the majority of in- | 
stances, however, the work commenced by 
a few devoted men and women was warm- | 
ly welcomed as an enterprise that would . 
prove an ally of no small importance to 
the church. 

Growth. The growth of Congrega- 
tional Sunday schools was as a result 
casual and spasmodic, and many years 
elapsed before they found their rightful 
place as an integral part of the activities” 
of the church. In some cases, more es- 
pecially in the north of England, the 
Sunday school grew up as an agency in- 
dependent of the church, although mainly 
relying upon its adherents for its supply 
of teachers and for financial support. 
This separation of two agencies that 
should be complementary is still felt in 
some degree. In the Story of Hnglish 
Congregationalism already quoted, the 






i j 


Ms | 
i 











Congregational Church (England) 


fact is commented upon as follows: “At 
present between the church and the Sun- 
day school there is often a great gulf. 
Some ask, ‘How can we bridge the gulf?’ 
I answer, ‘Don’t build a bridge; abolish 
the gulf.’ ” 

There is, however, increasing evidence 
of a closer relationship between the school 
and the church to which it is attached. 
Keen interest is being evinced in its 
growth, and the pastor of the church is 
invariably president of the school and 
takes an active part in its development. 
There are, however, matters still requir- 
ing urgent thought, if growth is to con- 
tinue unchecked, such as the training and 
supply of teachers. A solution is being 
found in a general adoption of methods 
of grading, and an adequate supply of 
teachers obtained through enlisting, at the 
moment of opportunity, the services of 
the young people of the church. 

The erection of school buildings, too, 
more in accord with present-day needs can- 
not be neglected; and lastly, there must 
be a fuller recognition of the fact that 
the school cannot flourish if financially 
starved, so that the collecting of proper 
equipment is rendered impossible. 

Its Place. A recognition of the 
place of the school in the economy of the 
church and its development has been 
more rapid in America than in England. 
Karly in the present century, however, the 
need for reform in the Sunday school to 
keep pace with the growing educational 
consciousness, became apparent. Many 
Congregational churches at once realized 
the value of such new methods as were 
then being advocated by Mr. G. Hamilton 
Archibald; and Toxteth Congregational 
Church, Liverpool, instituted the first 
Primary Department started in England. 

The necessity for grading the Sunday 
school throughout, according to the needs 
of the pupils, is becoming increasingly 
seen, and at this time many schools are 
in a state of transition from old methods 
to new. Although the ultimate results are 
still to be appraised, present indications 
show that this development will prove 
one of untold blessing to the Sunday- 
school movement. | 

To the late Rev. Albert Swift, a Congre- 
gational minister for some time associated 
with the work at Westminster Chapel, 


London, the Institute movement owes in . 


285 


Congregational Church, Canada 


large measure its initiation and impetus. 
This development is proving of no small 
value in keeping elder pupils in touch 
with school and church. 

In 1899 the Congregational Union of 
England and Wales officially recognized 
the important place of the Sunday school 
by including in the Congregational Year- 
book statistics as to the number of pupils 
and teachers connected with each church 
and in the denomination as a whole. This 
practice has been continued and the 
figures annually obtained are eagerly 
scanned, and looked upon as a measure 
of the growth of the church. 

In 1906 a further step was taken in 
the institution of an exhaustive inquiry 
into the efficacy of the Sunday schools 
connected with the denomination; this 
resulted in the issue of a lengthy report 
entitled: Our Sunday Schools; as They 
Are, and as They May Become, In this 
report the numerical strength of the 
schools and their relative efficiency is es- 
timated. In addition, recommendations 
are made for drawing the church and 
school into closer union, and so increas- 
ing the permanent value of their work. 

As an outcome of this official inquiry, 
the Young People’s Department of the 
Congregational Union was formed early 
in 1908 and recognized as an integral 
part of the Congregational Union of Eng- 
land and Wales, one of its expressed aims 
being to make the Sunday school of more 
value to the pupil and the church, by the 
advocacy of carefully suggested reforms. 

To carry this aim into effect, County 
Committees for Work Among the Young 
have been formed in connection with Con- 
gregational associations of churches 
throughout England and Wales. 

The newly formed department by the 
issue of literature and by keeping in 
touch with individual schools, assists 
churches to organize and build up their 
work among the children so that it may 
become permanently effective, and thus 
stay the decline in church membership, 
which has been the mark of recent years. 
It is a recognition of the collective re- 
sponsibility of the denomination to the 
children of the church. 

W. M. Harris. 


CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN 
CANADA, SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK OF 


Congregational Church, Canada 


THE.—The Congregational schools in 
Canada have had a most interesting his- 
tory, dating back to the first year of the 
nineteenth century. 'The denomination 
itself began operations in Newfoundland 
in 1645; Nova Scotia, 1753; New Bruns- 
wick, 1774; Quebec, 1801, and in Ontario, 
1819. 

The Rev. Dr. Bentom came from Eng- 
land at the request of some non-conform- 
ist soldiers, but arrived too late to be of 
service to them, as they had been removed. 
However, he organized a church of forty 
members. For officiating at a marriage, 
and for exercising other ministerial func- 
tions, Dr. Bentom was fined forty pounds 
and imprisoned for six months. In the 
reign of King William IV a statute was 
passed which placed Congregational min- 
isters in this respect on an equality with 
other clergymen. 

During Dr. Bentom’s imprisonment 
Rey. Francis Dick arrived from England 
and began the pastorate. In Quebec, in 
the year 1801, Mr. Dick organized the 
first Sunday school in Canada in connec- 
tion with the Congregational Church. 
This honor, however, has been claimed by 
some for a Miss Hedge of Montreal. 
There is no distinct history of Sunday 
schools in Lower Canada, as it was then 
ealled, until 1835 when a church was built 
in St. Maurice street, Montreal, and a 
Sunday school was regarded as an essen- 
tial part of the church’s work. Subse- 
quently, “Zion Church” had one of the 
largest schools in that city. 

In the Province of Ontario the first 
Congregational Sunday school was organ- 
ized at a place called Frome in Elgin 
county. In 1819 a church had been or- 
ganized by Rev. Joseph Silcox, who re- 
mained its pastor for forty years. Some 
time elapsed before a Sunday school ap- 
peared, but when organized it met wher- 
ever public worship was held—in log 
houses, barns, or public school buildings. 
Here the children were instructed in the 
Bible, without lesson helps, which were 
then unknown. The Bible was its own 
interpreter. | 

The school began at 9 A.M., and it still 
continues to meet at the same hour. It is 
worthy of note that one, Andrew Horton, 
was superintendent for forty consecutive 
years, and was only absent three Sundays 
during that time. The children were ex- 


286 





pected to “learn by heart” and recite not : 
less than six verses of Scripture every 
Sunday, for which they were annually 


rewarded with some inexpensive present. 
These conditions were general elsewhere. 

As time passed new features were intro- 
duced to keep pace with the progress of 
events. The International Series of Les- 
sons was regarded as a decided step in 
advance in Sunday-school work, and this 
series continues in use in most of the 
schools to-day, though in some instances 
the Graded Series has been adopted. 
However, this series is considered as 
rather too expensive yet for the ordinary 
school. The Adult Bible class early found 
a place in some of the schools. It has 
proved most helpful and its numbers have 
gradually increased. 

It is estimated that there are about 150 
Sunday schools, with a membership of 
10,000 pupils supervised by a staff of 
about 1,000 teachers. 


Congregational Church (U.§.) 


In some schools the Boy Scout and Girl — 


Guide movements have been introduced, 


and when properly carried on they have 


been found to increase the interest of the 


young, not only in the school, but in the 


church as well. 


Canada are probably Emmanuel Church, 


The three most highly ~ 
organized schools of the denomination in 


Montreal, Northern Church, Toronto, and — 


St. James Park, Winnipeg. 


In the teaching of the schools great 


stress is laid on home and foreign mis- 


sions, together with the vital question of — 


temperance. Probably the majority of 
the schools have a well signed temperance 
wall pledge. 

The conviction is constantly growing 


that the church can do its best work by — 


paying greater attention to the religious 


education of the young, and that the 
growth of the denomination depends very | 
largely upon having a well-equipped and — 
thoroughly aggressive system of Sunday- — 


school work. E. D. Stucox. ~ 


CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, SUN- 


Ee ae Ps 


1 
| 


i 
7 


DAY-SCHOOL WORK OF THE—Con- — 


gregationalism in America dates its begin- — 


ning from the landing of the Pilgrim 
Fathers at Plymouth, Mass., in 1620. 
They brought with them a church organ- _ 
ization which was established in Scrooby, | 
Eng., in 1606, and transferred to Holland | 


= 


in 1608. With the spread of the colonies 


| 


4 
4 
. 
’ 


41 
¢ 








Congregational Church (VU. 8.) 


and the growth of the Union, they became 
a national denomination. At the outset 
emphasis was laid upon the individual 
church, the churches uniting together 
simply for fellowship and codperation. 

The churches of the Congregational fel- 
lowship from the very first took a deep in- 
terest in religious education. It was a 
motto among them that the school and the 
church should be planted side by side. The 
instruction in the school as well as the 

church was considered religious. The close 
association of religion and education led to 
the founding by these churches of Harvard 
‘College in 1636, with the motto “For 
Christ and the Church,” and to the found- 
‘ing of Yale University in 1701. 

| These churches made provision for 
teacher as well as pastor in each church. 
Because of limitations, generally the office 
-was combined and very frequently the or- 
‘dination and installation services made 
‘recognition of “Pastor and Teacher,” even 
when both of these were held by one 
person. 

It was expected that all the children and 
youth should be catechized in the home 
as well as instructed in the church. With 
the growth of population and the entrance 
of many aliens, it was found that, even in 
the most favored parts of the country, 
large numbers were growing up without 
religious instruction. The early Sunday 
schools were not organized as the direct 
result of either denominational or church 
action, but in the places where they were 
established the idea was quickly adopted by 
the Congregational churches. 

In the year 1816 a Society was formed 
in Boston called “The Boston Society for 
the Moral and Religious Instruction of the 
Poor” (qg. v.) Many organizations with 
a similar purpose grew up in all parts of 
the country, generally by a union of indi- 
viduals and churches of different denom- 
inations. This led to the formation of 
the American Sunday School Union in 
1824. Feeling, however, that the work 
should be more closely associated with the 
churches, in the year 1825, the Congrega- 
tional and Baptist churches of Massa- 
chusetts united in forming the Massa- 
chusetts Sabbath School Union. In the 
year 1832 this Society was dissolved, and 
each denomination formed its own Society. 
This was heartily approved by both de- 
nominations, and at the first Annual Meet- 





287 


Congregational Church (U. 8.) 


ing it was stated that it was not a case of 
division, but of multiplication, as each 
Society had been able to accomplish as 
much singly as both had previously done 
unitedly. 

The Baptist organization some years 
later became a part of the National So- 
ciety of that denomination, at Philadel- 
phia, and the Congregational organization 
by different stages became the recognized 
denominational agency for carrying for- 
ward the Sunday-school work. Different 
organizations for publishing were merged 
with the Society, and in 1868 the name 
became “The Congregational Sabbath 
School and Publishing Society.” With the 
change of name in 1868 it became in the 
fullest sense a National Society. 

The Massachusetts Sabbath School So- 
ciety had been aiding with grants of litera- 
ture, and to some extent with missionary 
service, the Sunday-school work in the 
newest states of the West, especially Ohio, 
Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and 
Missouri. The Congregational churches 
in these new Commonwealths were united 
in state associations, and by vote gave rec- 
ognition to the work of the Sabbath 
School Society. 

The larger part of the work, however, 
was in preparing and publishing Sunday- 
school material, and aiding with grants of 
literature through the agents of the Home 
Missionary Society and to individual pas- 
tors. : 

In the year 1834, Rev. Asa Bullard 
(qg. v.) became the secretary for the So- 
ciety, and continued in its service for 
over fifty years. He was untiring in his 
zeal and efforts for the extension and im- 
provement of Sunday-school work. 

Reorganization.—In response to urgent 
petitions from state Congregational or- 
ganizations and other representative 
bodies, Rev. A. E. Dunning, D.D., was 
elected Sunday-school secretary in De- 
cember, 1880, and entered upon his 
duties January 1, 1881. Plans were then 
made for extending the missionary and 
educational work of the Society, especially 
in the central and western states. 

After the special reorganization, the 
first superintendents and missionaries sent 
out in 1883 were appointed to Colorado, 
Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Washington, 
and soon older states with frontier condi- 
tions asked and received missionary serv- 


Congregational Church (UV. S.) 


ice, until all the interior as well as west- 
ern states were furnished with workers 
from the Sunday School Society. 

From. the beginning of the organization, 
the need for improving as well as for the 
extension of Sunday-school work was rec- 
ognized. In the first years this was largely 
done through the issuing of literature. 
With the reorganization in 1882 each field 
superintendent sent out by the Society was 
commissioned in regard to improving the 
condition of existing schools, as well as in 
relation to extending missionary work in 
this vicinity. 

In the year 1883 the name was changed 
to “The Congregational Sunday School 
and Publishing Society,” which name it 
has since borne. During the early periods 
the voting membership consisted of An- 
nual and Life Members, so constituted on 
payment of certain sums of money, and on 
condition that they were members of Or- 
thodox Congregational churches. In 1892 
the Constitution was changed, giving rep- 
resentation to each State Association, 
Conference or convention of Congrega- 
tional churches which could elect five 
Annual Members, and also the right for 
each contributing church to elect one 
delegate. 

The organization received recognition in 
the action of each Triennial Council of 
the Congregational denomination, begin- 
ning with the Boston Council, 1865, 

Editorial Department—A  Sunday- 
school magazine, especially useful for 
teachers and for stimulating the work, 
called the Sabbath School Treasury, was 
published from 1825 to 1832, by the 
Massachusetts Sabbath School Union. The 
Congregational organization, under the 
name of the Massachusetts Sabbath School 
Society, continued the magazine with the 
name The Sabbath School Visitor. 

During the first seven years there were 
352 works published, of which 203 were 
for Sunday-school libraries, seventeen 
were question books, and three singing 
books. The first question book on Romans 
was issued in 1835. In 1853 a question 
book was published, which anticipated the 
name which afterwards became very pop- 
ular, The Inductwe Question Book. 

Previous to 1868 the Society had issued 
750 publications, of which 700 were for 
Sunday-school libraries. 

The Wellspring, the oldest young 


288 


people’s paper, was issued in 1844, and has 


Congregational Church (U. J 


continued under the same name to the 


present time. 
Previous to the organization of a dis- 


tinct department, the editorial work was 


done by Rev. Asa Bullard, and by differ- 
ent persons outside of the office. The ne- 
cessity was felt of having the work co- 
ordinated under one direction. In 1884, 
M. C. Hazard, D.D., then western secre- 
tary at Chicago, was called to organize and 
take charge of the Editorial Department. 
The lessons were unified and graded, and 
instead of a teachers’ edition of the Pil- 
grim quarterly, at the beginning of 1885, 
the publication of the Pilgrim Teacher as 
a monthly was begun. The Mayflower 
was begun in 1887, and owing to the de- 
creasing demand for question books, they 


were dropped in 1888. Some lesson helps 


were discontinued and others put in their 
places, until the Society had a complete 


list of publications covering the Senior, 


Intermediate, Junior and Primary depart- 


ments of the Sunday school. 


able rapidity. 
In the publication of books, the Society 
also had a somewhat similar experience. 


Hitherto very few books issued were writ- 
ten by attractive and competent writers. 
The Society, through its Editorial Depart- 
ment, endeavored to change the idea of 


what was suitable for a boy or girl in 


The circula- 
tion increased from 215,200 in 1884, to 
541,641 in 1889. The growth amounted 
in 1887, to 85,642 and in 1889, to 89,441. 
The circulation continued to increase 
thereafter, though not with such remark- 


Sunday school, and offered one thousand 
dollars in two prizes of seven hundred and 
three hundred dollars respectively for the | 


two best manuscripts, with the privilege of 
retaining any of the others that should be 
offered on terms satisfactory to the writers. 
Not only were the prize manuscripts ex- 
ceedingly good, but so many others were 
so nearly their equal that for two or three 


years, the Society did not have to depend 
upon unsolicited manuscripts. The recep- 


tion given to these books showed the pop- 
ular appreciation of the higher ideal, and 


stimulated writers who hitherto had not 


thought of Sunday-school literature as a 
field worthy of their attention. 


Educational Developments.—With the 


new awakening in religious education 
and in response to recommendations of 


) 





Hh 
i 








Congress of Mothers 


the National Council, steps. were taken 
in 1910 for organizing an LEduca- 
tional Department, resulting in the calling 
of Rev. B. S. Winchester, D.D., as educa- 
tional secretary and editor of general 
publications. For four years this depart- 
ment maintained a small force of trained 
specialists who devoted themselves to in- 
stitute work and the promoting of teacher- 
training classes in addition to other duties 
in connection with the Editorial Depart- 
ment, and in codperation with the field 
force of the Missionary and Extension De- 
partment. ‘The expenses of this depart- 
ment were temporarily defrayed from the 
profits of the Business Department. 
Through a change of policy in 1914 this 
method of support was discontinued. 

Present Status—The work of the 
Sunday School Society is administered by 
a National Board, consisting of fifteen 
Directors, elected at the Annual Meeting 
of the Society. Nearly all the State Con- 
ferences have elected Committees or 
Boards to codperate with the National 
Board in carying forward the work. The 
Society has one Treasurer, There are ex- 
pended for the missionary and extension 
work contributions from churches amount- 
ing to about $100,000 per year. Through 
the change of policy referred to above in 
1914 the work of the Educational Depart- 
ment is to be provided for out of the con- 
tributions of the churches to the Mission- 
ary and Extension Department. All the 
national benevolent societies of the Con- 
gregational denominations are [1915] in 
process of reorganization in course of 
which the ultimate disposition of the 
educational work will be more definitely 
determined. 

The Missionary and Extension Depart- 
ment employs twenty-five superintendents, 
who have charge of districts comprising 
one or more states. ‘They have as assist- 
ants about forty Sunday-school mission- 
aries and a number of temporary helpers. 
_ From the year 1884 to 1913 there were 
organized 12,565 Sunday schools, and for 
the same period there were developed from 
these organizations 1559 Congregational 
churches. 

WituramM Ewina, M. C. Hazarp. 


CONGRESS OF MOTHERS.—SeExz 
MoTHERS AND ParENT-T'EACHER Asso- 
CIATION, NATIONAL CONGRESS OF. 


289 


Conscience 


CONNEXIONAL SUNDAY SCHOOL 
UNION COMMITTEE.—Srrt PRIMITIVE 
Metuopist 8S. S. Union. 


CONSCIENCE, TRAINING THE.— 
The term consctence has been defined in 
so many different ways that difficulties 
present themselves at once upon endeavor- 
ing to make a formal statement as to the 
character and function of this essential 
and fundamental quality of mind and 
spirit. Some of the best and clearest 
thinkers hold that it is reserved for the 
period of reason for conscience to act 
as such, and this would altogether de- 
bar the little child from the realm of 
conscience. Noah Davis affirms that 
“Conscience is pure reason discerning 
right and wrong,” and Webster claims 
it to be the “faculty, power, or inward 
principle which decides as to the char- 
acter of one’s own actions, purposes, 
and affections.” The difference in the 
standards of morality in the ancient and 
Christian views caused a new and enlarged 
conception of the function of conscience, 
and man’s conduct instead of his knowl- 
edge came to be regarded as the condition 
of salvation. (See Religion, Psychology 
of.) 

The purpose of this article is not to dis- 
cuss the origin of conscience, but to sug- 
gest its influence at the various periods of 
childhood and youth. Teachers of young 
children are prone to believe that con- 
science plays a part in the moral develop- 
ment of the very young and that a little 
child learns through love for his mother 
to “be sorry” when he has done what is 
painful to her and to try to make amends 
by some outward display of unusual affec- 
tion. 

The Beginners’ teacher may learn much 
from the mother of the child, regarding 
the way in which the soil of the child’s 
mind is made fertile for the seeds of daily 
suggestions to conscience in thought, 
word, and deed. In the majority of cases 
a mother’s standards of right and wrong 
become those of her young child, just as 
his physical and mental nature take on the 
tone which she imparts and which the 
home atmosphere fosters. He believes 
what shé tells him and accepts her word 
without question, if he has been governed 
by the strength of love rather than by the 
weakness of tyranny. Until the child has 


Conscience 


acquired some basis of experience on 
which he is able to form right judgments, 
it is the duty of those in authority over 
him to help him to form ideas of what is 
right and what is wrong. 

It is difficult to lay down a rule in re- 
gard to the exact age at which the voice 
of conscience speaks, for this varies ac- 
cording to the environment, heredity, and 
training of individuals, but one may as- 
sume that there are certain universal 
tests which may be applied to that part of 
the psychic nature which will later develop 
into well-defined conscience. 

Obedience is one of the first laws which 
the child learns. Therefore, one of the 
earliest opportunities for conscience to 
express itself would come through disobe- 
dience. If a child is voluntarily sorry and 
asks to be forgiven when he has been dis- 
obedient, one may conclude that conscience 
has been at work in him. He may not, 
as a child, suffer any poignant grief over 
his misdeed, or think anything concerning 
the consequences of the deed itself, but 
he is sorry that he has pained the one to 
whom obedience rightfully belongs—his 
mother or father. Taking this as her 
guide the Beginners’ teacher will help to 
keep sensitive and active this phase of 
the spiritual nature in the child by adding 
to the influence of the home the emphasis 
of a similar suggestion by her personal 
attitude toward right and wrong, and the 
teaching which the child may normally 
receive on the subject of obedience in rela- 
tion to God’s word—the obedience that 
comes through love. 

The innate power which develops into 
the quality called conscience is a gift of 
God and is the reflection of his divine 
stamp upon humanity. However, the ex- 
ercise and value of conscience at various 
stages of development is a subject for 
earnest thought and conscientious study 
on the part of both parents and teachers. 

Truthfulness is another of the com- 
mon standards which becomes possible of 
more intelligent exercise as the child grows 
older and the opportunity to study the 
action and development of conscience in 
relation to untruthfulness affords a rich 
field for investigation and deduction. 
When a child is “caught in a story” and 
then is simply “sorry” because he is pun- 
ished, conscience has not yet done any 
very active work; but if, after the nature 


290 


Conscience 


of the act has been explained to him, he 
is sincerely sorry before the punishment 
is given, and if he shows no resentment 
after the punishment has been adminis- 
tered, one may consider that conscience 
has been nurtured and strengthened by 
the wise adult who has shown the child 
the way to appreciate the value of truth- 
fulness to himself first of all. 

At this period of the child’s develop- 
ment he still accepts the standards of right 
and wrong which are laid down by those 
in authority over him. The attitude 
toward truthfulness which the parents 
maintain in their daily hfe in the home 
will have the greatest influence upon the 
child, and will either aid or interfere when 


they are obliged to come into the relation — 


of adviser and sponsor in regard to the 
right action of conscience. The tempta- 
tion to untruthfulness is peculiarly insist- 
ent in the imaginative period and the wise 
Primary teacher should reénforce the 
teaching of the home by appropriate and 
well told stories designed to help the child 
to hold in his imagination those things 
which will enable him to exercise his will 
in the-right direction. (See Children, 
Falsehoods of.) 


One of the best indications that the 
conscience is a divinely implanted qual-— 


ity of the mind is the readiness with 
which this inner power acknowledges its 
relationship and responsibility to the 
Creator, after it becomes consciously 
active. It may be but an embryonic fac- 
ulty in the small child, but it is capable 
of constant normal development and it 
must be thus developed if the man is to 
be furnished with a sensitive moral com- 
pass which shall guide him aright. Early 


in his experience the child becomes ac-— 


quainted with the law of obedience. This 
law is imposed upon him by the forces 
of his environment and by those in author- 
ity over him. The first is a blind force 
that controls him in his weakness, the 
other is intelligent and manifests itself as 


restriction and guidance, but he does not 


always cheerfully conform to either. 


In order to make the law of obedience 


of intrinsic value to the child he should 
be provided with the authority for which 
he can have genuine respect. Out of this 
law of obedience should grow the better 


and progressive ideal “I ought,” and if he 
has been wisely guided in adjusting him- 





Conscience 


self to the law of compulsion, the transi- 
tion into this voluntary and conscience- 
guided obedience, will be easy and natural. 

It is with this stage in the development 
of the conscience that the Junior teacher 
comes in contact. If those requirements 
which have seemed arbitrary to the child 
are reasonable and within his powers of 
attainment, his translation of the prin- 
ciple “I ought” into terms of daily living 
will be a much simpler process. If he 
comes to do the things he ought from a 
sense of moral obligation or a conscious 
willingness, he will have incorporated the 
law into his own heart and adopted it as 
part of his personality. 

Strong moral teaching in honesty 
should be given at this period. This is 
the time when such teaching is peculiarly 
congenial to the pupil’s natural tendencies. 
He wants no confusion in statements or 
ideas when a subject is being presented to 
him. He appreciates a straightforward, 
simple statement of real facts. His duty 
must be clearly defined; his achievements 
justly and honorably accomplished. His 
admirations are all on the side of the 
heroic. One way in which to help him to 
resist the temptation to dishonesty (which 
makes its appearance at this stage because 
of the natural acquisitive tendency) is to 
make it possible for him to respond to the 
appeals to courage and loyalty until it 
becomes a normal thing for him to do it 
with his whole being. The hero story is 
now the teacher’s large asset in addition 
to a personal and active standard of abso- 
lute honesty toward all moral questions 
that involve the elements of courage and 
loyalty. The outward opportunity to be 
honest, when tempted to perform the dis- 
honest action, is a deliberate challenge to 
the law of obedience in the spirit of the 
boy or girl, and if fearlessness has been 
“nurtured the chances are that conscience 
will win more often than it will be si- 
lenced. (See Visual Instruction in Mor- 
als.) 

Another strong interest along positive 
lines at this period is a desire for justice 
and fair play, and it offers a fine oppor- 
tunity for the exercise of the law “I 
ought” in the life of the pupil when it is 
applied to his own attitude toward the 
principles which he would exact from 
others toward himself. His “personal 
ideal,” which may be described as the out- 


291 


Constitution 


growth of physical, mental, and moral 
ideals, will be determined in a large meas- 
ure by his intelligent conception and vol- 
untary exercise of the law of obedience, 
which may be termed the voice of con- 
science. Upon this will depend largely 
his future usefulness and value to society 
and the adjustment of his relationship 
toward God and his fellow men. Con- 
science is a progressive and constantly en- 
larging quality, and Sunday-school teach- 
ers may assist in developing the sense of 
right and wrong into a conscious “obliga- 
tion to do right.” 
Nanniz L. FRAYSER. 
References: 

Hocking, W. E. The Meaning of 
God in Human Expertence, pp. 551- 
557. (New Haven, 1912.) 

Sisson, E. O. The Essentials of 
Character, Chap. VII. (New York, 
1910.) 


CONSTITUTION OF THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL.—Many Sunday schools have no 
formal or written constitution, many have 
no need of one. The two chief objects of 
a Sunday-school constitution are, (1) to 
define the work of the different officers 
and committees so that there shall be no 
misunderstanding and as little duplicat- 
ing of work as possible; (2) to give such 
power to comparatively permanent officers 
or committees that the work of the school 
may be unharmed by frequent changes 
in any one or more of the officers. This 
second object is especially important for 
schools which have for superintendents 
the assistant ministers, who may receive 
a call before they have been with the Sun- 
day school more than a year or two. The 
following is a type of constitution for a 
school with a permanent superintendent. 


ARTICLE I.—Organization 


Section 1. This organization shall be 
called, “The Sunday School Association of 
the First Presbyterian Church of ——.” 

Section 2. The Association shall act under 
the authority of the Session of the Church. 

Secrion 3. The members shall consist of 
all regularly enrolled officers, teachers, and 
pupils of the Sunday school; but voting 
power shall be vested only in such members 
as are over sixteen years of age. 


ABTICLE II.—Officers 


Section 1. The officers of the Association 
shall be, a pastor, a superintendent, a secre- 
tary, a treasurer, a2 librarian, and an 
organist. 


Constitution 


Section 2. The pastor of the church shall 
be ex-officio the pastor of the Sunday school. 
(Here follow sections stating the duties of 
the officers, the rules for electing those 
which are elective, and directions for ap- 
pointing assistants for several of the 


officers.) a prrore III.—Meetings 

Section 1. The stated business meetings 
shall be held at the close of the Sunday- 
school session on the last Sabbath of each 
month. 

Section 2. The superintendent may call a 
special meeting at any time, and must do 
so when it is requested in writing by three 
members. 

SECTION 3. 
a quorum. 


ARTICLE _I1V.—Amendments 
Section 1. The Constitution may be altered 
or amended at any stated meeting by a 
three-fourths vote, notice having been given 
at the previous stated meeting of the in- 
tention to move such amendment or altera- 
tion. 


The By-Laws of this school give the 
order of business at the stated meetings; 
the rules for the appointing of an Execu- 
tive Committee, a Library Committee, and 
a Missionary Committee; and the detailed 
duties of the various committees and offi- 
eers. The following are characteristic 
paragraphs: 

3. The Executive Committee, in consulta- 
tion with the officers, shall have the care 
and oversight of the school property, except 
the library; shall provide supplies for the 
use of the school; and shall be authorized 
to expend money on behalf of the school, 
not exceeding ten dollars per month, sub- 
ject to the Association’s approval. 

15. The names of all members present 
every Sunday in the quarter shall constitute 
the First Honor Roll, and those present 
every Sunday except when excused, the 
Second Honor Roll. The Honor Roll shall 
form part of the Secretary’s quarterly re- 
port, and pupils who are on the Honor Rolls 
for the year shall receive a certificate or 
other testimonial at the Anniversary. 


For a school where the second object 
of a Constitution is important the follow- 
ing is a type: 

ARTICLE I.—Name 

The name of this association shall be... 
Sunday school. 

ARTICLE II.—Object 


The object shall be the advancement of 
Christ’s Kingdom by sessions for study and 
personal influence. 


Seven members shall constitute 


ARTICLE III.—Organization 


The members shall be the officers, teachers, 
and pupils of the Sunday school, but only 
the officers and teachers shall have voting 
power at the business meetings. 


292 


4 
f 


Constitution 


The officers of the School (or Association) 
shall be: 

The rector of the church, who shall be 
ex-officio officer and member of all com- 
mittees and departments of the Sunday 
school with power to make or veto any 
change. 

The superintendent appointed by the 
rector; an assistant or lay superintendent, 
if so desired; a secretary; a treasurer; one 
or more assistant secretaries or treasurers; 
a librarian if so desired. 

A chairman of the Primary Department. 

A chairman of each three years above 
the Primary Department; or, when so 
desired, a separate chairman of girls and 
boys of each three years. 

A Registrar. 

All officers, except the superintendent 
(and rector), shall be elected at the annual 
business meeting of teachers by a majority 
vote, subject to the approval of the superin- 
tendent. 

Vacancies, in any offices may be filled at 
any regular or special teachers’ meeting. 

(Here follow articles giving the detailed 
duties of the superintendent, secretary, and 
treasurer. ) 


ARTICLE VII.—Departmental Chairmen 


It shall be the duty of the departmental 
chairmen to see that the teachers are pro- 
vided with the proper teachers’ helps; 


they are properly transferred; to uphold 
and aid the teachers, in cases of discipline; 


to ascertain in the spring which teachers — 
and which | 


expect to return in the fall, 
pupils are to be promoted; to report on the 
subject of teachers to the superintendent, 


and to give the registrar a list of the old | 


pupils with their classes and gradings for 
the following fall; 
old pupils in the fall; to aid the superin- 
tendent in securing suitable teachers, and, 
in the absence of a superintendent, to ap- 
point teachers in their respective depart- 
ments; to preside at the departmental meet- 
ings; to ascertain and report to the super 


intendent at the officers’ meetings whether 


or not the teachers are calling on all their 
pupils. (In this school the departmental 
chairmen are also teachers.) 


ARTICLE VIII.— The Teachers 
(Detailed duties. ) 


ARTICLE I[X.—The Registrar 


Shall place new children in classes, and in 
cooperation with the chairmen replace old 
pupils when they rteurn after the summer, 
or other prolonged absence. He (or she, 
the registrar being preferably a woman) 


shall fill out such cards as the secretary 


needs for his catalogues, and perform the 
other usual duties of a registrar. p 


ARTICLE X.—Meetings 


There shall be at least three teacher 


meetings a year, one on some Sunday in 


ils 


to aid the placing of the 


Ad 
| 
t 


to | 
explain the lesson system and Sunday-school — 
customs to new teachers; to see that pupils — 
who are above or below the grade in which 





‘shall be elected . . 


Constructive Bible Studies 


when a Christmas committee 
. each department shall 
hold a meeting on some Sunday in October. 
There shall be a meeting of the Executive 
Committee (consisting of the superintend- 
ent, officers, and chairmen) on the third Sun- 
day of every month, and at other times 
when called. 


November, 


ARTICLE XI.—Amendments 
The By-Laws of this school provide for 


-and state the duties of: A committee for 


| 


visiting pupils whose teachers cannot do 


$0; a committee on music; a lesson com- 


| 
: 
] 


| 


mittee; a library committee; a committee 


on missions; a committee on recognition 
of work done or courses completed. The 


library committee provides for a teachers’ 
reference library (q. v.), there being a 


good public library near for the use of 


‘the pupils. The paragraph on the Lesson 
committee is characteristic. It reads: 











This committee shall consist of the rector, 


/ the superintendent, the chairmen, and such 
| other members as the rector may appoint, or 
-as shall be elected at a regularly called 
| teachers’ meeting. 


It shall be the duty of 
this Committee to see that the lesson system 


' of the school be based on Bible work, modern, 


graded in subject matter, as seldom changed 
as is consistent with rational progress, 
churchly, and as conducive to the awakening 


and nourishing of spiritual life as they are 


able to make it. (See Organization, S. S.) 
Marianna C. Brown. 


CONSTRUCTIVE BIBLE STUDIES.— 
About the year 1890, William Rainey 
Harper, professor of Semitic languages 
and literature in Yale Theological Semi- 


nary, and of Biblical literature in Yale 


University, became interested in the pro- 
motion of a more systematic study of the 
English Bible. (See American Institute 
of Sacred Literature.) His attention was 
called to the effort of Rev. Erastus Blakes- 
lee (g. v.) to produce a series of les- 
sons for use in the Sunday school, which 
should be in some measure adjustable to 
the varying ages and capabilities of the 
pupils in a given school, 

Working in codperation, Mr. Blakeslee 
and Professor Harper produced a series 
of lessons in the life of Christ, which 
represented four grades of work, elemen- 
tary, intermediate, progressive and ad- 
vanced. (See Bible Study Union Les- 
sons.) A little later Professor Harper 
having become president of the University 
of Chicago, withdrew from the association 


293 


Constructive Bible Studies 


with Mr. Blakeslee, but did not lose sight 
of the great need of better material for 
the use of both pupils and teachers in the 
Sunday school. In 1899, in conference 
with members of the staff of the Divinity 
school of the University of Chicago, he 
conceived a plan for a systematic series 
of textbooks for the study of the Bible, 
which should be adapted for all ages of 
pupils from the kindergarten to adult 
years. He invited to participate with him 
in the editorial management of such a 
series, Professor Ernest D. Burton, head 
of the department of New Testament Lit- 
erature and Interpretation in the same 
university. In 1900 the first volume, The 
Constructive Studies in the Life of Christ, 
was published serially in the Biblical 
World, reprinted in monthly pamphlets, 
and finally in book form. Upon the 
death of President Harper in 1906, the 
editorial management passed to Professor 
Burton, and is at present in his hands. 

At the present date several impressions 
of the volume above referred to have been 
issued. This volume represented work 
suitable for adult use only. In 1904 two 
further volumes followed, one, The Gospel 
of Mark, by Professor Burton, a study of 
this Gospel adapted to about the eighth 
grade of the grammar school, or the first 
year of the high school. In the same year 
appeared An Introduction to the Bible for 
Teachers of Children, by Georgia Louise 
Chamberlin, a book which is designed to 
guide the teacher of pupils who have just 
attained the age of interest in reading 
stories, in giving them a general survey 
of the Bible from the point of view of 
stories. It was the first book to appear in 
any series in which the results of modern 
scholarship were used in the presentation 
of Biblical stories to children. Since 1904 
new books have been published in rapid 
succession, the series now representing 
manuals for the teacher, those for the use 
of the pupil, and textbooks for pupil and 
teacher alike. 

Sixteen different authors have contrib- 
uted to the series, each representing in his 
contribution some practical and successful 
experiment in class work. The authors 
represent in some cases leading univer- 
sities, in others, important phases of reli- 
gious activity. In general they may be 
said to represent the point of view of 
modern scholarship, not however, in a con- 


Constructive Bible Studies 


troversial, but in a wholly constructive 
spirit. Each author endeavors to empha- 
size those principles and points of view 
which will be of moral and religious value 
to the pupil, and that will save him from 
the necessity of reconstructing his reli- 
gious life as it develops from stage to 
stage. 

Although at the time of the initiation 
of this series the thought of the editors 
embraced only a series of Biblical text- 
books, later developments in the field of 
religious education (see Religious Edu- 
cation Association), and a wider study of 
the principles of religious education led 
the editors to modify their idea of a cur- 
riculum in religious education, and ac- 
cordingly to introduce into the series 
books based on Christian principles but 
not strictly Biblical. Such books are So- 
cial Duties, by Charles R. Henderson, and 
Great Men of the Christian Church, by 
Williston Walker ; and still others not fall- 
ing strictly in the Biblical field. 

Although it is possible at this time to 
provide a book for each grade of the Sun- 
day school from the kindergarten to adult 
years, it is the intention and hope of the 
present editor to add alternative books in 
many grades. Believing that there will 
always be a necessity for textbooks based 
directly upon the Bible, but also, as the 
work of religious education advances that 
there will be an increasing demand for 
books discussing modern ethical problems, 
the history of the Christian Church and 
its work, and other like themes, the books 
that are necessary to round out an ideal 
curriculum will be prepared and added to 
the series as rapidly as circumstances 
permit. 

The following books constitute the 
series as at present published: 

(1) Kindergarten. The Sunday Kin- 
dergarten: Game, Gift, and Story, by 
Carrie S. Ferris. 

(2) Hlementary. Grades 1-3: Child 
Religion in Song and Story (Book I, The 
Child and Hts World), by Georgia L. 
Chamberlin and Mary R. Kern; Child 
Religion in Song and Story (Book II, 
Walks with Jesus in his Home Country), 
by Georgia L. Chamberlin and Mary R. 
Kern. 

Grades 4-8: An Introduction to the 
Bible for Teachers of Children, by 
Georgia L. Chamberlin, The Life of 


294 


Constructive Bible Studies 


Jesus, by H. W. Gates; Old Testament 
Story, by C. H. Corbett; Heroes of Israel, 
by T. G. Soares; Paul of Tarsus, by 
Louise W. Atkinson; Studies in the 
Gospel According to Mark, by E. D. Bur- 
ton; Studies in the First Book of Samuel, 
by H. L. Willett. 

(3) High School and Adult Grades: 
Problems of Boyhood, by F. W. Johnson; 
The Life of Christ, by 1. B. Burgess; 
The Hebrew Prophets, or Patriots and 
Leaders of Israel, by Georgia L. Chamber- 
lin; The Life of Christ, by E. D. Burton 
and Shailer Mathews; A Short History 
of Christianity in the Apostolic Age, by 
G. H. Gilbert; The Prophetic Element wn 
the Old Testament, by W. R. Harper; 
The Priestly Element wn the Old Testa- 
ment, by W. R. Harper; Christianity and 
tts Bible, by H. F. Waring; Social Duties 
from the Christian Powmt of View, by 
C. R. Henderson; Great Men of the 
Christian Church, by Williston Walker; 
Christian Faith for Men of To-day, by 
K. A. Cook; A Handbook of the Infe of 
the Apostle Paul, by E. D. Burton. : 

Relation to other series. The Construc- 
tive Bible Studies are at present in use 
in nearly 2,000 schools. This does not 
mean that all of these schools are using 
the Constructive Bible Studies alone. 
The character of the volumes in this series 
is such that a single volume may be in-. 
troduced into a school for the use of a 
single class or group of classes without 
disturbing the remainder of the school, 
In many schools, therefore, books from 
this series are in use in a single class or 
group of classes or in a department, while 
in other departments other helps are used. 
On the other hand, there are many schools 
whose work is entirely directed by this 
series. Just as the denominations provide 
educational secretaries to assist schools 
desiring to become graded, the publishers 
of this series employ persons experienced 
in religious education to assist schools im 
raising the educational standard of their 
work, 

Characteristics. The volumes of this 
series are all in bound form (except the 
constructive notebooks, which are im 
looseleaf form) and cover one school year 
of work. Music, handwork, illustrations 
and maps have all been carefully prepared, — 
from the point of view of artistic as well — 
as educational value. In the lower grades, — 


oe 


i 





Contact, Point of 


the religious value of play, of handwork, 
music, and other activities is recognized. 
In the higher stages of elementary 
work, the constructive and collective in- 
stincts are provided for. In the prehigh- 
school stage the discussion of common 
ethical problems, and in the high-school 
grades the study of history with recogni- 
tion of the social significance of reform, 
are the chief elements. ‘The series pro- 
vides between the first and the twelfth 
grades a threefold study of Old Testa- 
ment history and prophecy, the Gospels, 
and the Acts, and Letters which give the 
apostolic history and thought, each time 
from the point of view most appropriate 
at that stage of the pupil’s advancement. 
GrEoreIA L, CHAMBERLIN. 


CONTACT, POINT OF.—According to 
Herbart (q. v.) the first formal step in the 
teaching process is preparation—the pre- 
paration of the learner by the teacher, or 
in other words to establish a point of con- 
tact. If there is to be learning, the learner 
and the teacher must approach each other 
on the same plane; they must understand 
each other; and they must make use of 
no ideas that are not common to both. 
Perception comes only through ideas al- 
ready possessed; the teaching process 
moves always from the known to the un- 
known. The teacher, therefore, must 
know what is already in the learner’s mind 
that he may build on a real foundation. 
He must consider the learner’s plane of 
experience, use language that he can com- 
prehend, look at life so far as is possible 
through the pupil’s eye, and understand 
his ideals and his ways. 

If he is teaching children he must real- 
ize that he is dealing with one who speaks 
as a child, understands as a child, thinks 
as a child. He must know that the little 
child has little conception of chronology 


or of the perspective of events, that he 


will understand no allusions to history, 
or literature, or passages from the Bible, 


and that the Golden Text will probably 
Mean little to him. To deal with such 
things is a waste of golden opportunity, 


for there is a whole world of material that 


May be given him. 
_ First, it must be realized that the child’s 
vocabulary is limited ; that he knows noth- 


ing of even the most familiar theological 
terms. Holiness, charity, faith, meekness, 


295 


Contact, Point of 


peace—of the meaning of all such terms 
he knows nothing. He may look inter- 
ested and even animated as the lesson is 
being taught; but one should not be de- 
ceived. It might be startling if the 
teacher really knew why the child is inter- 
ested. One lady teaching a little girl 
about faith in God was impressed by the 
child’s eager interest until she learned the 
secret-—“Your nose moves up and down 
so funny when you talk,” the child ex- 
plained artlessly. Even so simple a text 
as “Forgive us our trespasses’ may be 
wholly lost on children. The first task 
of the elementary teacher is to learn the 
language of her pupils for it is a first law 
of teaching that the language of the 
teacher shall be perfectly understood by 
the taught. (See Teaching, The Laws 
of.) 

Then again, to bring a lesson home to 
a child one must know something concern- 
ing his life and his environment. Country 
children are not like city children. It 
is useless to tell of the shepherd and the 
lost sheep to a class that knows nothing 
about sheep. It is wise before one tells 
this story to a class of young children to 
prepare the class, to ask how many have 
seen sheep, and then have the one who 
seems to know the most in. regard to the 
matter to describe a sheep to the class. 
The teacher may supplement as she thinks 
best, using pictures to make things more 
clear. Then she is ready to tell the story. 
She has established a point of contact. 

The world of childhood is smaller than 
most teachers realize. In one city school 
35 per cent had never been in the country; 
47 per cent had never seen a pig; 20 per 
cent did not know where it came from. 
The teacher who has been for a long time 
in charge of her class realizes the condi- 
tion of each of her pupils, and can work 
to much better advantage than could a 
stranger. She should draw her illustra- 
tions constantly from the child’s little 
world. Jesus used no other method. He 
taught the profoundest truths, but he 
taught them in simple terms and he illus- 
trated them at every step with simple 
material taken from the lives of the hum- 
blest of his hearers: the sower and the 
seed, the birds, the soils, the tares, the 
signs of the skies, the foxes, the goodly 
pearl, the traveler who fell among thieves, 
the landowner who let out his vineyard 


1 


4 


Contagious Diseases Conventions - 


296 


to husbandmen. He brought ever the un- 
known in terms of the known. (See 
Christ as a Teacher.) 

The principle applies to adults as well 
as to children, One must know his class. 
One would not teach a class of farm work- 
ers as he would a class of college students. 
If one has a gathering of miners he should 
choose his illustrations from the miner’s 
occupation in such a way as to make them 
very effective. From the known to the 
unknown is the first law in pedagogy. 

F, L. PAtTEE. 

Reference: 

Du Bois, Patterson. The Point of 

Contact in Teaching. Ed. 4, rev. and 

enl, (New York, 1901c1896-1900.) 


CONTAGIOUS DISEASES.—Srrt Hy- 
GIENE, 


CONTINUOUS SERVICE PLAN.—Serxr 
CoMBINATION SERVICE. 


CONVENTIONS, SUNDAY-SCHOOL.— 
The assembling together in convention of 
Sunday-school workers and friends of the 
Sunday-school cause has been a note- 
worthy feature of the Sunday-school 
movement in America; and the influence 
of such conventions on the development 
of local Sunday-school method has been 
profound. (See City Training School; 
Graded Unions of Sunday School Teach- 
ers; Method, Schools of.) 

1. Early Local Conventions. The Sun- 
day school, introduced by Robert Raikes 
(q. v.) in England in 1780, and first ad- 
vocated by him three years later, was 
transplanted to America about the close of 
the century; and for the next thirty years 
its progress in the United States was that 
of a cause seeking recognition and adop- 


tion. Sunday schools multiplied under the. 


influence of societies formed to establish 
them, and continued in correspondence 
with the local or general body of which 
each Sunday school was counted a branch, 
The local unions formed by the American 
Sunday School Union (organized 1824), 
and the societies which preceded it, in 
many cases held annual meetings which 
partook of the nature of Sunday-school 
conventions; and occasionally these were 
held in and for the townships, counties 
and other civil divisions of the field which 
these unions undertook respectively to 
cover. For the most part, however, the 


Sunday schools of that period were small 

and scattered, representing largely the 
personal devotion of individual Chris- 

tians; so that large representative Sun-— 
day-school conventions were not possible. 

The new ideas and inspiration for service 

which modern delegates secure at the 

Sunday-school convention were ministered 

to these schools through correspondence 

with the local or parent union, and in 

some cases through the visits of a union 

representative. 

In Hartford, Conn., the Sunday-school 
union covering the county of that name 
held regular annual meetings for many 
years after 1823. Numerous other series 
of annual meetings, more or less of the 
convention type, date from that general 
period. On January 13, 1831, a conven- 
tion of Sunday-school teachers assembled 
at Mexico, N. Y., and organized “The 
Oswego County Sunday School Teachers’ 
Association,” holding a delegated conven- 
tion under the care of a committee of their 
number, The organization formed at this 
time, however, appears to have been 
simply another one of the then numerous 
local auxiliaries of the American Sunday 
School Union. 3 

What seems to have been a genuine 
“first county Sunday-school convention” 
was that held at Winchester, Ill., April 20, 
1846, for Scott county, IL, under the 
lead of Stephen Paxson (q. v.), who later 
became a missionary of the American 
Sunday School Union. Mr. Paxson’s plan” 
was original and was the outgrowth of 
his zeal in creating an interest in Sunday 
schools in the country around Winchester, 
his home, and of his sense of personal 
incapacity to teach them what they evi- 
dently needed to learn in order to be 
able to conduct Sunday schools intelli- 
gently. On the river bottoms the people 
were ignorant and poor; in other parts 
of the county there were educated settlers 
from, the Hast; and his idea in calling 
the convention was to enable these parties, 
as he phrased it, to “swap ideas.” De-. 
nominational prejudices at that time made 
the calling of an interdenominational 
gathering seem hazardous and unlikely of 
success; but with his customary persist-_ 
ence Mr. Paxson, after one or more pre- 
liminary efforts, succeeded in holding a 
good convention, and was invited the fol-. 
lowing fall to hold a like convention for 


ved 
¥% 
}. 





Conventions 


Pike county, adjoining. These conven- 
tions constitute the historical beginnings, 
at least for the central states, of the sub- 
sequent system of county, state, national, 
and International conventions, with the 
associations which have grown out of them 
and by which they are now conducted. 

2. Early National Conventions. Three 
national Sunday-school conventions were 
held in the United States prior to the 
Civil War and the opening of the present 
series of triennial conventions in 1869. 

Steps for calling the first convention 
were taken by the board of officers and 
managers of the American Sunday School 
‘Union, which resolved, April 10, 1832, 
“that it be recommended to the superin- 
tendents and teachers of Sunday schools 
in the United States to convene at some 
noe time and place for the purpose 
of considering the principles of the insti- 
tution; the duties and obligations which 
attach to the several officers of Sunday 
‘schools, the best plans of organizing, in- 
structing and managing a Sunday school 
in its various departments, and such other 
| oleae as may pertain to the general ob- 
jects of the convention.” In view of the 
opposition to the Union by many leading 
denominationalists, the managers did not 
themselves call the convention. Instead, 
they arranged for a representative meet- 
ing of Sunday-school leaders, which met 
in Philadelphia on May 23 of that year, 
following the Union’s annual meeting, 
laid well its plans, and issued a call for 
a national Sunday-school convention in 
the city of New York on the first Wednes- 
day of the following October. A ques- 
tionnaire, as it would now be called, was 
drawn up, embracing 78 inquiries into 
the existing state of Sunday-school prac- 
tice and opinion. A committee of five 
was appointed to receive and digest the 
replies to these questions; while another 
committee was to submit to the conven- 
tion “such simple directions for the estab- 
lishment and support of Sunday schools 
18 may be adapted to general use.” 

_ This early adoption of the method of 
preparing for a convention by a series of 
tommissions using the questionnaire 
nethod, popularly associated in mind first 
with the great missionary convention at 
fdinburgh, in 1910, is in itself remark- 
ible. Not less so was the thorough and 
successful way in which the two commit- 





























—— 


R97 


Conventions 


tees or commissions carried out their task, 
and the use made of their labors by the 
convention in session. More remarkable 
still was the idea of holding such a con- 
vention at that time. At the time of this 
convention there were less than 200 miles 
of railroad in the twenty-four states and 
four territories of the United States; with 
population sparse, transportation slow, 
fatiguing and sometimes hazardous, and 
the Sunday-school cause still under the 
necessity of defending itself against con- 
stant attacks and imputations of un- 
worthy motives, the enterprise represented 
vision and courage of a high order. Per- 
haps the success of a meeting held by the 
Union at Washington the year before— 
February 16, 1831—to consider the Mis- 
sissippi Valley resolution, and incident- 
ally to defend the Union against the cur- 
rent charge that it was seeking a union 
of church and state, may have suggested 
the idea. At that meeting Webster, Fre- 
linghuysen, and a number of other distin- 
guished senators and representatives from 
various states spoke on behalf of the Sun- 
day school and the extension of the 
Union’s missionary and publication work; 
and their addresses furnished an illus- 
tration of what might be if the leading 
Sunday-school workers of these and other 
constituencies could once be brought 
together. 

The convention met in the Chatham 
Street Chapel, New York city, October 3, 
1832, with 220 delegates from fourteen 
states and four territories. In addition 
to the difficulties already mentioned, the 
cholera raged that summer in New York; 
and the size and representative character 
of the attendance must be regarded as 
phenomenal, Nearly all the noteworthy 
Sunday-school men of the time were repre- 
sented in the discussion, Leading min- 
isters and laymen of the Baptist, Congre- 
gational, Dutch Reformed, Methodist 
Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Protestant 
Episcopal churches, and of the Society of 
Friends, were present from Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Caro- 
lina, South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mich- 
igan, The Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen 
(q. v.) of New Jersey, eminent then and 
later as a Christian statesman and edu- 
cator, was made president. The com- 


Conventions 


mittee on interrogatories reported 138 
responses from twenty states, and sub- 
mitted a careful digest of the answers thus 
given, with recommendations under each 
head. The discussions, thus guided, trav- 
ersed. the whole range of current Sunday- 
school methods and problems, raising 
many questions which are now obsolete, 
such as the use of the rod in Sunday- 
school discipline, and the propriety of 
single Sunday-school sessions exceeding 
two hours in length. On the other hand, 
as Dr. H. Clay Trumbull (q. v.) points 
out in his review of the convention (Re- 
port of the Fifth National Convention, 
Indianapolis, 1872, pp. 12, 13), there is 
hardly a topic that was prominent at 
Indianapolis forty years later, or even at 
the present day, that is not at least fore- 
shadowed in the able and far-reaching 
discussions as reported at the time in The 
Sunday-School Journal of the American 
Sunday School Union. As a whole, the 
effect of the convention was to gather up 
and systematize the previously diverse 
and unsettled body of Sunday-school tra- 
ditions and methods, and to plant them 
on a foundation as broad and well-con- 
sidered as could possibly have been laid 
at that stage of American educational 
progress, 

The only mistake that seems chargeable 
to this convention was the hasty decision 
to call another the following year. It must 
be remembered, however, that these men 
were pioneers, and that convention work 
in America for any purposes not political 
had little experience as a guide. ‘The 
Second National Convention—a body 
completely independent of the first, as Dr. 
Trumbull has convincingly shown—met 
in the Cherry Street Lecture Room, Phil- 
adelphia, May 22, 1833, and chose as 
president Hon. Willard Hall of Delaware, 
who had recently issued a notable pam- 
phlet in defense of the Sunday-school cause 
and the American Sunday School Union 
as its standard-bearer. Nine states were 
represented in this gathering; and the 
delegates included many of those present 
the year before, with other noteworthy 
names. Various committees, appointed at 
the New York convention, brought in 
elaborate reports on the topics assigned 
them., The convention appointed a com- 
mittee to act in conjunction with its secre- 
taries for the publication of its reports 


298 





Nw 
and documents, and adjourned on Thurs- 
day noon, May 23. a 

Between the conventions of 1833 and 
1859, there was considerable field actiy- 
ity in convention lines leading to the 
establishment of state associations, each 
with its annual convention, in various” 
states, as related under the next head, 
But the men of 1832 were so far in ad- 
vance of their day that even the idea of 
another national convention seems not to 
have been broached, until the great re- 
vival of 1857 and 1858 impelled Chris- 
tian men to various new and broad enter-— 
prises, | 

The New York State Sunday-school 
convention of 1858 proposed what was to 
them the new idea of a national conven- 
tion of Sunday-school teachers in Phila- 
delphia. The Sunday-school leaders at 
that city promptly took up the suggestion; 
and a call was issued, inviting every evan- 
gelical Sunday-school in the United States 
to send at least one delegate. The signers” 
of the call included Drs. Thomas Brain- 
erd, Richard Newton (q. v.), W. T. 
Brantley, and W. J. R. Taylor with 
George H. Stuart (q. v.), Jay Cooke, 
John 8S. Hart (q. v.), Matthias W. Bald- 
win and Abraham Martin. The New 
York State leaders suggesting the call 
included R. G. Pardee (q. v.), Lucius 
Hart, Albert Woodruff (gq. v.), Ralph. 
Wells, and A. A. Smith. Religious inter- 
est ran high at the time, and the response 
was hearty and general. 

This Third National Sunday School 
Convention met in Jayne’s Hall, Phila-. 
delphia, on Tuesday, February 22, 1859. 
Former Governor James Pollock of Penn- 
sylvania was made president. H. Clay 
Trumbull of Connecticut was one of the 
secretaries. Louis Chapin of New York, | 
Nelson Kingsbury of Connecticut, and 
James W. Weir (q. v.) of Pennsylvania) 
were on the business committee; Mr. Weir 
with many other of the workers in attend-_ 
ance, having been active in the conven- 
tions of 1832 and 1833. The convention, 
was well attended and enthusiastic, and 
indicated a far higher level of general 
interest in Sunday-school work than had 
the first and second conventions. It did 
not, however, like those gatherings, ad: 
dress itself seriously to the origina 
study and solution of Sunday-school prob. 
lems. The inspiration to those attend 

| 










: Conventions 
: 


ing and to the cause in general was great, 
and is reflected in the records of the near- 
by state associations of that date. The 
Sunday School Times, established by the 
American Sunday School Union on Jan- 
‘uary 1, 1859, came into being in time to 
aid in securing delegates for the conven- 
tion; and the proceedings, well reported 
by its editor, Rev. I. Newton Baker, were 
published in its columns, March 5, 1859, 
‘no other report being issued. 

The convention of 1859 resolved to call 
“a similar assemblage of the representa- 
tives of the evangelical Sabbath schools of 
America” in 1861, and appointed a com- 
mittee, with George H. Stuart as its 
chairman, to arrange therefor. The out- 
‘break of the Civil War made such a proj- 
ect impossible and turned men’s thoughts, 
“North and South, in other directions; the 
chairman finding his place as head of the 
United States Christian Commission, 
which labored for the good of the Union 
‘soldiers during the war. Ten years ac- 
cordingly elapsed before another national 
Sunday-school convention was held; and 
the initiative for this, as before, came from 
‘a source other than the convention pre- 
ceding. 
_ 8. Early State Conventions. In the 
‘records of Sunday-school field activity for 
‘the years from 1820 to 1859, mention is 
‘more than once made of state Sunday- 
‘school conventions being held; the gather- 
3 ing being in fact the annual meeting and 
state-wide rally of one of the American 
‘Sunday School Union’s auxiliaries, rather 
than a self-active, self-perpetuating, dele- 
gated and reasonably representative ter- 
ritorial Sunday-school convention, as the 
term is now understood. In Maryland the 
‘State Sunday School Union, established in 
: 1843, developed sufficient independent life 
‘to hold its own annual conventions regu- 
larly and conduct a vigorous field cam- 
‘paign; and its organization passed into 
‘the new fabric of the International work 
without a break. Wisconsin similarly 
organized in 1846, but later discontinued 
Its annual gatherings. 
| In 1856, however, was held in New 
York State a real convention to organize 
“the New York State Sabbath School 
Teachers’ Association,” as it was called; 
and from that date on the Empire State 
has brought together each year a delegated 
Conyention of its own Sunday-school 








299 


Conventions 


workers, In 1857, similar first conven- 
tions were held in Connecticut and Massa- 
chusetts; in 1858, in New Jersey; in 
1859, in Illinois. The coincidence of 
these dates with the great religious awak- 
ening commonly called “the revival of 
1857” is more than fortuitous. In all the 
evangelical denominations, the most ear- 
nest and practical church members were in 
the Sunday school, and their leaders with 
one accord emphasized conversion as the 
great objective of Sunday-school effort. 
The impulse among these workers to con- 
vene and organize for mutual encourage- 
ment and help, present and future, was a 
natural outgrowth of the deep spiritual 
impulses then at work in the nation. 

The initial Sunday-school convention 
in New Jersey may be taken as a type of 
these significant pioneer gatherings. Its 
call, issued by the secretaries of the Cam- 
den and New Brunswick city Sunday- 
school associations, summoned “a conven- 
tion of the superintendents, teachers, and 
friends of Sabbath schools connected with 
all the evangelical churches in the state of 
New Jersey,” to meet at New Brunswick 
on November 3, 1858, “to consult in re- 
spect to the establishment of Sabbath- 
school associations throughout our state; 
to effect a more thorough, systematic, and 
efficient effort in bringing every child in 
the state under religious influence and 
instruction; and for prayer and confer- 
ence in regard to this important aid to 
the church of Christ.” The Sunday- 
school ideals of the day are here clearly 
stated. From one to five delegates were 
sought from each school, and the recip- 
ients were asked to extend the call among 
the schools in their vicinity. 

The convention, on assembling in the 
Second Presbyterian Church of New 
Brunswick pursuant to this call, was or- 
ganized on motion of the local committee 
of arrangements, installed temporary 
officers, named committees on enrollment, 
organization, and business, settled its 
hours, and at the second session elected 
permanent convention officers, Governor 
William A, Newell being made president. 
The five participating denominations, 
Baptist, Dutch Reformed, Methodist, and 
Old and New School Presbyterian, were 
duly represented by vice-presidents. The 
business in hand was declared to be the 
establishment of a state Sunday-school 


Conventions 300 | Conventions 


association. The enrollment committee 
received its report with instructions to 
enroll the delegates as from the Sunday 
schools and not from the churches, and 
with power to include delegates later ap- 
pearing. Pastors and others present, 
friends of Sunday schools, were recog- 
nized as members and directed to enroll. 
The convention thus clearly established 
itself as a convention of Sunday-school 
representatives, and not a convention of 
church representatives assembling in the 
interest of the Sunday school. 

Following discussion and an evening of 
addresses, the convention proceeded, on 
the morning of Thursday, November 4, 
1858, to “organize itself into a permanent 
association,” and adopted a constitution. 
The perfecting of this instrument and 
the election of the association’s permanent 
officers, with a few minor items, com- 
pleted the work of the convention. See 
State and Provincial Sunday School As- 
sociations. 

The business of creating efficient state 
Sunday-school associations, with a force 
of county secretaries and other means for 
extending local organization, having been 
completed, the subsequent conventions of 
these bodies rapidly assumed an inspira- 
tional character, and became mighty forces 
for the development of Sunday-school en- 
thusiasm and the intelligent direction of 
local Sunday-school effort. In Illinois, 
the enthusiasm showed itself in annual 
gatherings of from three to five thousand 
delegates and the enlistment of leaders 
like B. F. Jacobs (q. v.), William Rey- 
~ nolds (qg. v.), Dwight L. Moody (gq. v.), 
Alexander G. Tyng (q. v.), and “Chap- 
lain” McCabe, under whose vigorous lead 
the county organization of the state was 
rapidly perfected, and the missionary side 
of the work turned into volunteer channels 
through the holding of township and dis- 
trict meetings at which the reaching of 
the unreached was the principal objective. 
Other states besides those named soon 
swung into line; and at the National Con- 
vention of 1869, annual conventions, held 
by their respective associations, were re- 
ported from eleven states—Connecticut, 
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, 
Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, 
‘Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; with Mary- 


land, including the District of Columbia, 


holding annual conventions of its State 


Missionary Sunday School Union as stated 
above. ; 

4. Triennial National and Interna- 
tional Conventions, 1869-1914.—The 
Third National Sunday School Conven- 
tion, Philadelphia, 1859, left behind it a 
committee empowered and directed to call 
a like convention two or three years later. 
At that time, however, the country was 
plunged in civil war and a delegated na- 
tional convention was out of the question. 
After peace in 1865, the subject of another 
national convention was frequently agi- 
tated at state conventions and elsewhere; 
and in June, 1868, a conference of Sun- 
day-school workers met in Detroit, Mich., 
in connection with the International Con- 
vention of Young Men’s Christian Asso- 
ciations and appointed a committee from 
their number to call “an International 
Sunday-school Convention.” This com- 
mittee soon learned of the existence of the 
committee left by the Convention of 1859; 
and the two committees worked in har- 
mony, accepting the invitation of the New 
Jersey Association to meet at Newark the 
following year. Thus, on April 28, 1869, 
in the First Baptist Church of Newark, 
N. J., met the convention which opened 
the present series of conventions repre- 
senting the International Sunday School 
Association. 

This body, the Fourth National Conven- 
tion, called itself the Third National 
Sunday School Convention; its interna- 
tional character, as foreshadowed by its 
projectors, being limited to the platform 
recognition of one or two visitors from 
abroad. Its reckoning for itself as third 
in the list was due to the statement by 
the veteran James W. Weir, who in his 
account of the Convention of 1832, re- 
ferred to that of 1833, as an adjourned 
meeting of the first converition, though 
himself indicating later that the latter 
gathering was entitled to separate enu- 
meration, This convention was carefully 
planned, conducted with marked ability, 
and not only aroused even more enthusi- 
asm than that of 1859, but marked a 
phenomenal increase in the efficiency of 
Sunday-school work and the extent of 
voluntary field Sunday-school organiza- 
tion. Field reports were heard, not only | 
from the twelve states named above, but | 
from various other states represented by | 
delegates, from denominational Sunday- 


Conventions 


school bodies and from the American Sun- 
day School Union. The convention presi- 
dent was the venerable George H. Stuart 
of Philadelphia; the secretaries were H. 
Clay Trumbull, John H. Vincent, and 
B. F. Jacobs; and the chairman of the 
executive committee appointed by the 
Convention was Edward Eggleston 
(q. v.) of Illinois. 

The Fifth National Convention met in 
Indianapolis, April 16-19, 1872. As com- 
pared with that of Newark, this was a 
convention of business rather than for 
inspiration. ‘Three steps of importance 
were taken. One of these was the enlarge- 
ment of the convention’s field to include 
the Dominion of Canada. Another was 
the election of E. Payson Porter as the 
convention’s statistical secretary—the first 
step, as it proved, in the creation of a per- 
manent official organization. The great 
event, however, was the adoption, after a 
memorable debate, of the resolution direct- 
ing the appointment of a committee to 
choose uniform Bible lessons for all Sun- 
day schools and denominations willing to 
use them. This measure, championed by 
B. F. Jacobs for several years previously, 
and recommended in the resolutions of the 
conference of superintendents conducted 
by him in connection with the Newark 
Convention three years before, was passed 
by the Convention with only ten votes 
recorded in opposition ; a preliminary uni- 
form series, arranged by action of a con- 
ference of lesson publishers, having been 
in effect since January, 1872. (See Uni- 
form Lesson System.) The president of 
this Convention was Philip G. Gillett of 
Illinois; the secretary, George A. Peltz of 
Pennsylvania, and the chairman of the 
executive committee, chosen by the Con- 
vention, H. Clay Trumbull, of Connecti- 
cut. 

The First International Convention, 
Baltimore, May 11-13, 1875, strongly 
voiced the spirit of fellowship between the 
United States and Canada and between 
the recently severed workers North and 
South. Dr. Warren Randolph (gq. v.), 
as secretary of the New Lesson Com- 
mittee, gave the story of the committee’s 
work so far and of the phenomenally 
rapid acceptance of its lessons. Dr. J. H. 
Vincent, in an address, outlined improve- 
ments in Sunday-school method fore- 
shadowing much of what has since been 


301 


Conventions 


counted new. Great progress appeared in 
the work of state and local organization 
since 1869. The statistical secretary 
made a detailed report for North America, 
showing a Sunday-school membership of 
six and a half millions in the United 
States and three hundred thousand in 
Canada. President, Rev. George A. Peltz, 
New Jersey; chairman of the executive 
committee, John E. Searles, Jr., Con- 
necticut. 

The Second International Convention, 
Atlanta, April 17-19, 1878, still further 
emphasized the spirit of fellowship, dwelt 
on the continued success of the Uniform 
Lesson System, laid special stress on 
normal work, and aroused much enthu- 
siasm for united Sunday-school effort. 
For the Second International Lesson Com- 
mittee fourteen members were chosen. 
Dr. Vincent again sounded a note of edu- 
cational progress in a scheme for graded 
Bible study, for ten minutes each Sunday, 
to supplement the uniformity of the new 
lessons. The reports from state and pro- 
vincial Sunday-school organizations, while 
indicating steady progress, showed that 
the system was far from complete, many 
fields being unorganized and others or- 
ganized in name only. ‘The statistical 
secretary reported progress in securing 
exact returns ; and the Convention by reso- 
lution decreed that its statistics should 
embrace Protestant evangelical Sunday 
schools only. President, Gov. Alfred H. 
Colquitt of Georgia; chairman of the new 
executive committee, Franklin Allen, of 
New York. 

The Third International Convention, 
Toronto, June 22-24, 1881, marked the 
practical establishment of what has since 
been called the International Sunday 
school Association (qg. v.). The Illinois 
delegation, under the lead of William Rey- 
nolds, B. F. Jacobs, and M. C. Hazard 
(g. v.), and seconded by the Convention 
president and delegates from various 
states, led a movement which resulted in 
the employment of E. Payson Porter as 
statistical secretary, his previous services 
having been free to the Convention, and 
the adoption of a system of pledges, pay- 
able annually for three years, from the 
state and provincial associations; the in- 
come thus raised to be expended in the 
aforesaid secretary’s salary and further 
aggressive work for the promotion of field 


Conventions 


organization. The Convention ratified 
the new executive committee’s choice of 
B. F. Jacobs as its chairman on this plat- 
form of advance. Reports were heard 
from the large delegation sent the pre- 
vious year by the executive committee to 
London to attend the Raikes centenary. 
The London Sunday School Union was 
represented by F. F. Belsey, and other 
foreign work was reported. (See Sunday 
School Union, London.) Mention was 
made from New York state of a new plan 
for extending local Sunday-school influ- 
ence through the organizing of “home 
classes” in adjacent neglected neighbor- 
hoods. President, Hon. S. H. Blake, 
Ontario. 

The Fourth International Convention, 
Louisville, June 11-13, 1884, embodied, 
in its large and representative attendance 
and the high character of its addresses, 
an advance in convention quality over 
preceding gatherings. Mr. Jacobs, as 
chairman of the executive committee, 
made the first of his remarkable series of 
triennial reports, which showed, with that 
of the statistical secretary and the verbal 
reports from state representatives, that 
organization had advanced to a point 
where the territory in the United States 
and Canada yet unreached was reduced to 
a few weak and scattered fields; while 
nine states and one territory reported 
“banner” organizations, every county 
holding its county Sunday-school conven- 
tion. The total Sunday-school member- 
ship was reported as 9,146,028, of whom 
8,712,551 were in the United States. A 
conservative movement to dispense with 
a paid secretary was defeated, and the sub- 
scriptions for the next triennium were 
substantially advanced. One full session, 
with other time, was devoted to primary 
Sunday-school work, and Mrs. W. F. 
Crafts, as president, reported the organi- 
zation of a national union of primary 
workers. ‘Temperance addresses were 
made by Miss Frances E. Willard and 
others. The appointment of a third les- 
son committee, to select the lessons for 
the years 1886-93, directed interest to 
that subject. The committee was care- 
fully reconstructed, with fourteen mem- 
bers as before and five corresponding 
members from Great Britain and France, 
and was recommended to provide quar- 
terly lessons on temperance. President, 


302 


cl 


Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell, Massachu- 


setts. | 
The Fifth International Convention, 
Chicago, June 1-3, 1887, continued the 


high standard of convention work set at 


Louisville, As there, a session was de- 
voted to primary work. The general trend 


of the addresses was in the direction of 


more efficient method in Sunday-school 


Conventions 


teaching. The statistical secretary’s re-— 


port showed a Sunday-school membership 
of over nine millions in the United States 
and nearly half a million in British Amer- 
ica, with thirty-four of the fifty-seven 
state, provincial, and territorial fields fur- 
nishing fresh reports of their own secur- 
ing. The report of the executive com- 
mittee, presented by Mr. Jacobs, described 
several extended tours of organization 
over the continent by voluntary leaders; 
its recommendations of general advance 
were heartily adopted, including a reso- 
lution approving of the calling of a 
world’s Sunday-school convention in 
Kurope—the initial step, as it proved, 
toward the organization of the World’s 
Sunday School Association (q. v.). An 
income of $10,000 a year was called for, 
toward which subscriptions to the amount 
of $4,400 per annum were secured. Con- 


siderable interest was manifested in for-— 


eign Sunday-school work, especially in 
connection with the reception of Mr. 
Edward Towers, Hon. Sec. and delegate 
of the London Sunday School Union. 
The Lesson Committee’s report, through 
its secretary, Dr. Warren Randolph, was 
received with approval. William Rey- 
nolds of Illinois presided. 

The Sixth International Convention, 
Pittsburgh, June 24-27, 1890, heard for 
the first time the report of an employed 
superintendent; William Reynolds of 
Peoria, Illinois, president of the former 
convention, having in October, 1887, 
accepted that position under the execu- 
tive committee. Through his extended 
visitation of state, territorial, and provin- 
cial conventions and other gatherings, 
supplemented by like work on the part 


of Mr. Jacobs and others, the cause of 


the field Sunday-school organization had 
greatly advanced; and with enthusiasm 
a subscription of over $6,500 a year was 


raised for the work. ‘Two sessions were — 


devoted to primary work. The World’s 
First Sunday-school convention, held in 


Conventions 


London in July, 1889, pursuant to the 
resolution passed at Chicago, was reported, 


and a second world’s convention provided 


for, to be held at St. Louis in connection 
with the next International convention. 

The chief interest at Pittsburgh cen- 
tered in the appointment and instruction 
of the Fourth Lesson Committee. On 


_two points debate ran high—the enlarge- 


] 


_ment of the committee to secure represen- 


tation for additional denominations, and 
the question of whether or not four quar- 


terly temperance lessons, without alter- 


“native lessons for those Sundays, should 


be required of the Committee. 


On both 
points compromises were made; the com- 


“mittee being increased to fifteen, and a 
“modified temperance lesson plan, pursued 
by the Lesson Committee during the last 
year of the third cycle, being approved as 
the plan to be followed by the new Com- 


mittee. By this plan, in 1892, the Com- 
mittee furnished temperance lessons with- 
out alternatives for the first two quarters, 
and alternative temperance and mission- 
ary lessons for the last Sundays of the 
third and fourth quarters. When Miss 
Willard, the distinguished national repre- 
sentative of the movement for four non- 
alternative lessons, rose to move that the 
adoption of this compromise be made 
unanimous, the occasion became dra- 
matic. The convention president was 
Hon. John G. Harris of Alabama. 

The Seventh International Convention, 
St. Louis, August 30 to September 2, 
1893, besides holding the usual primary 


_workers’ special session, held also a pre- 


liminary conference of field workers, in 
charge of a field workers’ association 
organized the year before. Reports from 
the state, territorial, and provincial asso- 
ciations occupied much of the time. Be- 
sides the raising of pledges for the work, 
a special subscription of $4,000 was raised 
for the World’s Sunday School Building 
at the Columbian Exposition then open 
in Chicago. The lesson question, accen- 
tuated by the recent issuing of Dr. Blake- 
slee’s lessons and other symptoms of revolt 
against uniformity, aroused earnest de- 
bate, but without action changing the 
Lesson Committee’s instructions. (See 
Bible Study Union Lessons.) The con- 
vention closed informally on Saturday 
afternoon, September 2, and was followed 
by the sessions of the World’s Second 


303 


Conventions 


Sunday School Convention. 
Hon. Lewis Miller of Ohio. 

The Highth International Convention, 
Boston, June 23-26, 1896, by relegating 
the state and provincial reports to a side 
meeting, secured the time for a series of 
inspiring addresses, and gave many indi- 
cations of the continued progress of the 
field in Sunday-school organization and 
specialization. The devotional services 
were led by Dwight L. Moody. At the 
sessions of the International Primary 
Union, held simultaneously for part of 
the time, great advances in method were 
indicated, and changes in the Union’s 
constitution were made with a view to 
assimilating this work to that of the Con- 
vention. A new Lesson Committee was 
elected to choose lessons for the years 
1900-1905, and a movement to relieve 
them of definite instructions concerning 
the finding of temperance lessons was suc- 
cessfully opposed. The Executive Com- 
mittee, through Mr. Jacobs, reported ex- 
tensive field work performed by Field 
Superintendent Reynolds and also by 
Prof. H. M. Hamill of Illinois and others, 
and by Rev. L. B. Maxwell (colored) of 
Georgia, whom the Executive Committee 
had placed in the field pursuant to resolu- 
tions adopted at St. Louis. The reports 
of Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Maxwell as to 
their work aroused much enthusiasm. 
President, Hon. Samuel B. Capen of 
Massachusetts. 

The Ninth International Convention, 
Atlanta, April 26-30, 1899, marked in 
several: ways the beginning of the present 
stage of International Sunday-school or- 
ganization. Field Superintendent Rey- 
nolds, who had died in the midst of his 
work in 1897, was fitly commemorated. 
Mr. Jacobs was made honorary chairman 
of the Executive Committee, and Hon. 
John Wanamaker (q. v.) of Philadelphia 
was elected chairman, but subsequently 
declined. The International Primary 
Union and the Field Workers’ Association 
were recognized as departments of In- 
ternational work. Although it was re- 
solved not to establish an International 
normal or teacher-training department, 
the work of Prof. Hamill as field secretary 
had stimulated interest throughout the 
associations in teacher-training work; and 
the primary delegates at Atlanta estab- 
lished for their own constituency an In- 


President, 


Conventions 


ternational primary normal course of 
study, with examinations and a diploma. 

The Convention also resolved to employ 
a general secretary to take over the office 
direction of the work hitherto supplied 
by Mr. Jacobs, and the Executive Com- 
mittee, at the Convention, chose Mr. 
Marion Lawrance of Ohio for that office, 
subsequently defining his relation as co- 
ordinate with that of the field secretary. 
At St. Louis, a special fund had been 
raised among the delegates to put a field 
worker in Japan; and at Atlanta the 
worker thus secured, Mr. T. C. Ikehara, 
was made the Japan field worker of the 
International Convention. The corre- 
sponding members of the Lesson Com- 
mittee were recognized as the British 
Section with equal rights. The Conven- 
tion addresses throughout were of a high 
order. President, Hon. Hoke Smith of 
Georgia. 

The Tenth International Convention, 
Denver, June 26-30, 1902, opened under 
the shadow of the death of the great 
leader, B. F. Jacobs, three days before. 
William N. Hartshorn (gq. v.), of Boston, 
who had been Acting Chairman of the 
Executive Committee for most of the 
triennium, was elected as Chairman. 
The primary work was represented not 
only in a special convention session but in 
a preliminary two-day “Western School 
of Methods,” well attended and progres- 
sive in tone. The field workers also held 
preliminary conference sessions. General 
Secretary Lawrarice made his first trien- 
nial report, showing a total Sunday-school 
enrollment for North America of over 
fourteen millions in 153,246 Sunday 
schools, and extensive field work by a 
large force, mostly voluntary. About 
$14,500 a year was pledged for the work 
of the new triennium. 

The election and instruction of the 
Sixth Lesson Committee, combined with 
the demand for graded beginners’ and 
advanced lessons, caused renewed inter- 
est in the lesson question. A proposed 
advanced course of lessons was disap- 
proved; while a request from the pri- 
mary workers for a two-years’ beginners’ 
course was by the same resolution favor- 
ably referred to the Lesson Committee— 
the first break in the uniformity of the 
Convention’s lesson system since its adop- 
tion thirty years before (See Graded Les- 


304 


y 
i 


sons, International, History of.) The 
Convention addresses were inspiring and 
finely representative of the rapid progress 
in field and local method up to that time. 
President, Rev. Benjamin B. Tyler, D.D., 
of Colorado. 

The Eleventh International Conven- 
tion, Toronto, June 23-27, 1905, consid- 
erably exceeded the Denver Convention in 
the variety and freshness of the addresses 
and the range of topics covered. ‘This 
was partly due to the large number of 
double sessions held. The official dele- 
gates alone numbered nearly 2,000 with 
1,000 additional visitors from outside the 
city—nearly twice the enrolled represen- 
tation at Denver. ‘The well-planned 
series of auxiliary conferences, notably 


Conventions 


those for the field workers and the ele- 


mentary workers, who now represented 
three departments of Sunday-school work, 
Beginners, Primary, and Junior, contin- 
ued the institute feature begun at Denver. 
The reports showed a rapid advance in 
the organization of what was now form- 
ally designated the International Sunday 
School Association, Permission to in- 
corporate was voted to the Executive 
Committee. The lesson issue came up 
in the form of a recommendation to au- 
thorize the advanced course which had 
been disapproved at Denver. By a close 
vote the Convention renewed its disap- 
proval, but later unanimously agreed to 
the proposal. It was an educational and 
formative convention. President, Hon. 
Justice J. J. Maclaren, K.C., of Ontario. 

The Twelfth International Convention, 


Louisville, June 18-23, 1908, was char-— 


acterized, as at Toronto, by full and en- 
thusiastic delegations and a purposeful 
series of auxiliary meetings. The ad- 
dresses as a whole fell short of the high 
standard set at Toronto. 
growing power of the 
Executive Committee, through its newly 
established central office at Chicago, its 
paid official force, its policies of manage- 
ment, and the increasing unwieldiness of 
the Convention as a deliberative body, was 
further accentuated by the presentation 
and approval of a charter granted in 
1907 by the United States Congress which, 
as it afterwards developed, involved the 
future turning over of the power of the 
Convention to its newly incorporated 


The steadily 
International — 


Executive Committee, now frankly called — 





“the International Sunday School Asso- 
ciation.” 

Pursuant to its Lesson Committee’s 
recommendations, the Convention unani- 
mously passed two resolutions, one com- 
“mending and continuing the Uniform 
Lessons and the other directing the newly 
chosen Seventh Lesson Committee, Amer- 
ican Section, “to continue the preparation 
of a thoroughly graded course of lessons, 
-which may be used by any Sunday school 
which desires it, whether in whole or in 
part.” An unsuccessful effort was made 
from the floor to alter the list of names 
proposed for the new Lesson Committee. 
~The Field Workers’ Association closed 
up its separate organization and left its 
interests in the hands of the subcommittee 
of the Executive Committee, somewhat as 
the elementary workers at Toronto had 
done with their originally separate organ- 
ization. The recently developed depart- 
ment of organized adult class work was 

represented in a street parade of over a 
‘thousand men. President, Hon. John 
Stites of Kentucky. 

The Thirteenth International Conven- 
tion, San Francisco, June 20-27, 1911, 
brought together 2,342 registered dele- 
gates and well maintained the best Inter- 
national standards in the character of its 
addresses and work, the breadth of its dis- 
cussions and the completeness with which 
it treated the current phases of Sunday- 
school work. The most noteworthy public 
feature was the great parade of men’s 
classes, in which over 10,000 men, each 
armed with a Bible, marched through the 
streets to the Coliseum. In accordance 
with its newly chartered powers, the Ex- 
ecutive Committee enlarged, reorganized 
and instructed the American Section of 
the Lesson Committee, adopting a set of 
by-laws which for the first time gave the 
International Association a written con- 
stitution. The graded lesson outlines 
which had been issued by the Lesson Com- 
Inittee in pursuance of the Louisville 
‘Tesolution formed the principal subject of 
Convention discussion ; the principal issue 
being as to the propriety of using in the 
lesson lists material from other than Bible 
sources. Both sides of this question were 
presented ; and the practical success of the 
lessons was well brought out in one of the 
‘separate conferences, of which there were 
Many. Mr. William N, Hartshorn was 


Conventions 30 


5 Conventions 


succeeded as Executive Chairman by Mr. 
Fred A. Wells of Illinois. Mr. Hartshorn 
was made President of the Convention, 
but through temporary illness was unable 
to preside; his place being taken by the 
vice presidents, Mr. A. B. McCrillis of 
Rhode Island, Rev. H. H. Bell, D.D., of 
California, and Mr. William Hamilton of 
Ontario. Chicago was selected as the 
place for holding the Fourteenth Inter- 
national Convention. 

The Fourteenth International Conven- 
tion, Chicago, June 23-30, 1914, was 
planned on a vast scale, with fifty-five 
conferences, twenty-one special meetings, 
and numerous other gatherings and spe- 
cial features, in addition to the sixteen 
sessions of the main convention in the 
Medinah Temple. In the quality and 
number of the addresses and the vigor 
and illuminative power of the special ses- 
sions the convention was noteworthy. 
The delegated attendance was about 
2,060, from 67 constituencies. The evan- 
gelical basis of International fellowship 
was reaffirmed. ‘The convention period 
was lengthened from three to four years, 
subject to agreement (since obtained) 
with the World’s Association. The mis- 
understandings as to the effect of incor- 
poration were satisfactorily resolved, the 
primacy of the convention over its execu- 
tive committee being stated and exempli- 
fied in action. The by-laws were revised, 
further improving the plan of organiza- 
tion. An agreement with the Sunday 
School Council was ratified, creating a 
new joint “International Lesson Com- 
mittee,” consisting of eight members 
chosen by the Convention, eight chosen by 
the Council and one each by the denomina- 
tions which have a lesson committee of 
their own. To the new committee thus 
constituted were referred the convention’s 
recommendation that all lessons be chosen 
from or based on the Bible, and a memo- 
rial praying for the appointment of a 
“Uniform Lesson Commission.” The 
president was Dr, H. M. Hamill (gq. v.) of 
Tennessee. New York was chosen as the 
place for the convention of 1918. 

5. State Convention Work. The annual 
delegated Sunday-school convention is 
still in many fields, as originally in all, 
the most important and conspicuous fea- 
ture of the interdenominational state or 
provincial Sunday-school association, 


Conventions 


The object of such conventions is to make 
a study of the field and the work, to trans- 
act the necessary business of the associa- 
tion, to make and present plans of work 
for the ensuing year, to advocate and 
explain ideas and methods in local Sun- 
day-school work, and to inspire the dele- 
_gates for higher service. 

Each state and provincial association 
pursues its own customary methods in the 
holding of its annual convention, and 
strives to improve on these from year to 
year. In some fields, notably Ohio, and 
earlier in Illinois, state conventions have 
brought together an aggregate of five 
thousand delegates or more, without los- 
ing their character as delegated bodies 
representative of their fields. In the 
more sparsely settled states and provinces, 
where distances and travel costs are rela- 
tively great, the attendance is often largely 
local, with a sprinkling of enthusiastic 
representatives from distant points within 
the field. The state convention usually 
lasts two or three days, and includes in- 
spirational singing, devotional meetings, 
addresses of welcome and response, elo- 
quent presentations of standard themes, 
practical conferences and discussions, and 
a business session for hearing the reports 
and securing or registering the subscrip- 
tions from county associations and indi- 
viduals for the ensuing year’s work. 
Various separate conferences, rallies, and 
institute sessions are usually held as part 
of the program; and the executive and 
other committees hold frequent and some- 
times extended meetings. A convention 
evangelist or director of the devotional 
services is often secured, to give this im- 
portant part of the proceedings unity and 
force. The advertising campaign for dele- 
gates is vigorously pursued, sometimes 
with the use of unique and eye-catching 
printed matter. 

The following are some of the more im- 
portant principles involved in the con- 
struction and management of a state con- 
vention program : 

1. Definiteness of aim. The convention 
should stand for certain clearly defined 
ideas and aspirations in local and field 
method. What is said and felt at the con- 
vention is of trifling importance com- 
pared with what is done as its outcome. 
The present state of Sunday-school activ- 
ities, field and local, as gathered by the 


306 


Conventions 


field workers and exhibited in the statis- 
tical report, should guide the leaders in 
planning a line of attack upon the situa- 
tion; and this should be embodied in the 
arrangement of topics, the choice of 
speakers, and the provision for deliberative 
action, if the convention would rise to the 
situation and find a way to move forward. 
Sometimes this aim is embodied in a con- 
vention theme, more or less ingeniously 
developed into the subthemes for the sey- 
eral sessions. While this may help by en- 
listing many in the pursuit of the aim 
thus set forth, it may also hinder by im- 
posing artificial limitations on the con- 
vention’s scope. <A better method of in- 
suring definiteness of aim is to embody 
the latter in an explicit resolution and to 
secure its adoption by the executive com- 
mittee as part of the initial arrangements 
for the convention. It is the program 
committee rather than the public that 
needs to keep the aim in view. 

2. Subordination. The convention ex- 
ists, not for its own sake as an enterprise, 
nor even for the personal uplift of its 
members, but for the cause of which it is 
the exponent. In it this cause comes into 
consciousness, defines itself, and seeks first 
to utter and then to realize its ideals. To 
relate the convention to the cause in- 
volves some sacrifice of immediate better- 
ment to the delegates as individuals. 
Hence a party will always be found who 
are in favor of omitting business and 
routine and devoting practically the whole 
time to addresses, conferences, and other 
items bearing directly on local method or 
personal culture. The-.old organization 
workers, on the other hand, to whom the 
money-raising, the statistics, the field re- 
ports, and the report of the nominating 
committee are the convention, all other 
items being necessary appendages to these, — 
are liable to plan sessions interesting only - 
to themselves, whose prolixity of non- 
significant detail defeats its own purpose. | 
Between these extremes a true balance 
may be kept; every session playing its part | 
in the exhibition of the work as it is and | 
should be, while making its appeal to the | 
delegates’ local and personal sense of need. | 
The convention must serve the delegates; 
but first of all it must serve the cause. 

3. Educational content. The utterance | 
of the convention, taken as a whole, must | 
be educationally high. The average and | 





Conventions 


subaverage Sunday schools, whose work 
is along the line of least resistance, will 
rally to calls based on fellowship, inspira- 
tion, the excursion interest, desire to hear 
a noted speaker, and loyal support of the 
work. ‘T'o these entirely legitimate mo- 
tives must be added that of educational 
advance, if the convention expects to in- 
terest and enroll representatives from the 
Sunday schools of high ideal. As to the 
others also the convention should lead, 
inspire, and occasionally antagonize, not 
merely satisfy the sense of complacency by 
eloquent voicings of the admitted and the 
commonplace. The executive committee 
can do no more practical service for their 
state convention than by giving their 
idealists the lead and accepting responsi- 
bility for the choice of speakers of broad 
vision and courageous utterance, whose 
views they may themselves be far from in- 
dorsing. Part of the work of a convention 
is to teach men to think in new terms, 
Let the leaders of conferences and depart- 
‘ment sessions be workers tried and true, 


‘whose detailed advice shall be sound and: 


In harmony with the association’s standard 
educational policy; but keep the platform 
fresh and free. Dry-rot is quite as danger- 
ous an evil as heresy. Each year’s pro- 
‘gram should make, somewhere, a note- 
worthy advance, not merely in Sunday- 
‘school method and expedient, but in the 
comprehension of the great realities which 
the methods and expedients are designed 
to secure. 
_ 4, Representation. The field must be 
well represented, as to (a) its extent, (b) 
its lines of local work, (c) its lines of field 
work, (d) its prevailing characteristics, 
(e) its denominational divisions, and (f) 
its relationship to other fields. The dele- 
gated and representative character of the 
gathering must be real and expressed. 
Roll-calls of county delegations, signs in- 
dicating reservations of space, printed or 
posted rolls of delegates registered and 
Tepresentative reports from county or 
‘other sections of the field, are currently 
used to accomplish this needed result. 
By such devices the convention is brought 
Into consciousness of itself and learns to 
take itself seriously. The modern Sun- 
day school, also, has developed many lines 
of graded and otherwise specialized work; 
and each of these specialties should be 
duly represented somewhere in the pro- 


307 


Conventions 


gram and the rallies. The lines of field 
work should be represented in councils, 
luncheon and dinner conferences, and the 
like; and their respective leaders should 
be heard from. There are types of Sun- 
day-school workers, city and country, pro- 
gressive and primitive, native and immi- 
grant, emotional and intellectual; and for 
each in due proportion help and guidance 
should be ministered. The denomina- 
tions represented should have reasonable 
representation. The committee should 
consider this matter, in order that the 
convention may be free to forget it. Fi- 
nally, the convention’s larger body, the 
International Sunday School Association, 
should not fail of a representative voice 
and a hearing. 

5. Specialized fellowship. For most of 
the fields of the International Association, 
distances forbid any state-wide rally of 
the forces except under the unusual stim- 
ulus of the annual state convention. At 
the same time, progress in departmental 
lines of work calls for the personal com- 
ing together of each departmental group 
of workers and local leaders at least once 
a year. If the temperance work of the 
state association, for instance, is to ad- 
vance beyond the personality of the state 
superintendent of that specialty, the tem- 
perance workers must find themselves, 
cement acquaintances, and develop their 
own natural leaders. The special confer- 
ences, institute sessions and departmental 
banquets and rallies of a modern state 
convention, therefore, not only contrib- 
ute to the educational advance but min- 
ister to the specialized fellowship of the 
organization and thus open the way for 
more and better field work during the 
year, 

6. Freedom of expression. The early 
state conventions, as we have seen in the 
case of New Jersey, were self-managed ; 
the committee of arrangements venturing 
only to submit a program for adoption. 
The modern state convention is neces- 
sarily planned in detail long in advance, 
and for most of its extent represents the 
judgment and will of the executive com- 
mittee. ‘There is therefore the greater. 
need that a certain part of the time and 
of the outcome shall be left free for the 
convention itself to manage and deter- 
mine. If this is to be a real convention, 
room must be given it in which to live, 


Conventions 


to grow, and to express itself in sponta- 
neous action. One hour’s conference, fol- 
lowing a spirited presentation of some 
vital topic, and one single real issue, care- 
fully formulated and honestly submitted 
for decision, will suffice for this function- 
ing of the self-expressive instinct; and the 
delepates will return to their homes 
sobered with a sense of their responsibility 
as partners in a great work and enthusi- 
astic that this important question was 
settled and settled right. ‘That impres- 
sion should lead the expression, if the 
work is to be educational, is as true of 
the state convention as of the kinder- 
garten. 

%. Convention spirit. Whatever may 
be the educational content of the program 
the evangelical earnestness of the leaders, 
the excellence of the year’s field record, 
the size of the delegations, or the balance 
in the treasury, the convention will fail of 
success if it lacks convention spirit. Psy- 
chologically this is the same thing as that 
“carnival spirit” which the experienced 
showman labors so earnestly to secure and 
maintain among his patrons—a sense of 
exaltation and freedom of soul, in which 
money, time, dignity, and other categories 
lose their usual inhibitive power, and the 
hitherto circumspect individual flings 
himself into the situation and helps to 
make things happen. Dangerous as is 
this well-known propensity of humankind, 
it is just as available for high and holy 
as for low and selfish ends. Under vari- 
ous names it is used not only by the show- 
man but by the demagogue, the merchant, 
the promoter, and the great evangelist; 
and the leader of the great Sunday-school 
convention must study its reactions and 
perfect himself in its methods, if he would 
attain his end as successfully as they do 
theirs. 

The convention should begin under full 
pressure and keep going without let-down 
to the end. Separate meetings should fol- 
low, never precede, the rousing opening 
session. The sequence of topics and 
speakers should be climactic. Education, 
financial, and official objectives should be 
earnestly considered. Whatever goals are 
announced should be attained; sufficient 
reserve force being in hand to insure that 
the note of triumph shall be added to the 
note of endeavor. The evangelical spirit, 
which is properly dominant in most of the 


308 


“ 


Conventions 


fields, should have free and high expres- 
sion, as the true interpretation of the edu- 
cational aims and the proper expression of 
dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ and 
his all-powerful Spirit of truth, who is 
able to use all the traits of common human 
nature in his work for the Kingdom of 
God. It is easy by mistakes of plan to 
lose or fail to secure this fine convention 
spirit; and it is also possible to sacrifice 
higher values to it and to be satisfied with 
mere enthusiasm. But whatever one 
wants the convention to be, educational, 
financial, missionary, evangelistic, or what 
not, convention spirit rightly managed 
will lend itself to the project and help in 
winning the aim. 

6. County Convention Work. The 
county being a universal and fairly uni- 
form division of the state and provincial 
field in both the United States and Can- 
ada—the use of the word parish in 
Louisiana to describe the same thing is 
an exception only in name—it is also 
used with nearly equal universality as 
the territorial unit of Sunday-school or- 
ganization. ‘The exceptions are princi- 
pally in New England, where the “town” 
or self-governing township overshadows 
the county in popular importance, and 
where, accordingly, Massachusetts and 
some other fields divide not by counties 
but by districts of several towns each. 
Over all this vast field, therefore, a com- 
mon unit of organized Sunday-school life 
prevails; and the expression of this life is 
the annual county Sunday-school conyven- 
tion. The institution deserves much more 
attention than it has hitherto received 
from social and religious workers and 
leaders in the country life movement. 

The general principles of convention 
work, as enunciated with regard to the 
state convention, apply in large part to 
the smaller and more local work of the 
county convention. Several special points, 
however, require attention. 

The initiative, both as to date and pro- 
gram, is best left with the general secre- 
tary of the state or provincial association, 
who must provide for the representation 
of the state force at many such conven- 
tions, and who usually, with his helpers, 
has certain ideas which he wants to bring 
to the field through the county conven- 
tions as a medium. ‘These ideas are usu- 
ally embodied in a paper of program sug- 


ap 


Conventions 


gestions sent to the county workers at the 
outset of the season. Dates of course 
should be arranged in series, so that the 
state workers may visit the county con- 
ventions on tour; this calls for some 
accommodation on both sides. The state 
interests, especially as to financial support, 
uniform standards of efficiency, depart- 
mental codperation, and representation 
at the state convention, should be accorded 
a full voice and hearing. The convention 
should be loyal to its larger work. 

Beyond these points, however, the 
county executive should labor to make the 
convention their own meeting, truly repre- 
sentative of the best Sunday-school life of 
their particular field. Every such execu- 
tive, by the common law of the Interna- 
tional work, is independent in its own 
sphere, and should resist any attempt to 
turn its convention into a mere voice of 
the state work, should the state leaders be 
so ill-advised as to attempt such a policy. 
All really helpful local leadership and 
talent should be sought out and made use 
of before inviting speakers from abroad. 
By a condensed and well-planned set of 
reports from township, district, and de- 
partment officers, as well as from the gen- 
eral county officers, every worker should 
be made to feel the force of his constitu- 
ents’ opinion of his year’s record, whether 
for praise or blame. The convention is 
a business meeting as well as a rally; and 
its highest function is to produce for the 
coming year an organization better chosen, 
more representative, and more efficient 
than that of the year before. That se- 
cure, no pains should be spared to strike 
a high note, and send back, in the heart 
of every delegate, a strong and enduring 
impulse to better Sunday-school service. 

A wide divergence of type naturally 
prevails in so diverse a field. Some 
counties are coterminous with large cities ; 
and in such the convention is usually a 
one-day mass gathering in a large church, 
with noted speakers and with business re- 
duced to a few reports and rather perfunc- 
tory votes of approval. Other counties 
cover wealthy suburban territory and 
represent choice educational ideals; the 
county workers being in many cases 
experts who also lead in state and denom- 
inational Sunday-school work. Among 
the strictly rural county fields there are 
equally wide divergences; the large and 


309 


Conventions 


semi-arid counties of the great western 
fields, where missionary service, pastorates 
on circuit, and little Sunday schools are 
the rule, requiring a much simpler and 
more elementary program than where de- 
partmental specialization has been fos- 
tered and a large percentage of the work- 
ers are ready for the latest in method and 
plan. The state secretary has no more 
difficult or more fruitful field of work 
than the development of efficiency in his 
county conventions. 

Townships and districts by the thou- 
sand every year hold Sunday-school meet- 
ings which are frequently called conven- 
tions and are sometimes by their char- 
acter entitled to that designation. The 
prevailing field usage, however, is to re- 
strict the name convention to a delegated 
body of county or larger size. The work 
of holding these township and district 
meetings is dealt with as a part of the 
work of the county and state Sunday- 
school association. 

%. Denominational Sunday-School Con- 
ventions. Conventions, as distinct from 
institutes, are held under denominational 
auspices in many state fields, especially 
in the South. (See Institutes, S. S.) 
Denominations whose type of organiza- 
tion is prevailingly congregational, in- 
cluding the Presbyterian, tend to organ- 
ize their field on state lines; and numer- 
ous analogies point in such case, to an 
annual denominational Sunday-school 
convention, sometimes held in connection 
with the annual convention or synod of 
the ecclesiastical body covering the same 
field. Where the denomination is organ- 
ized by dioceses or conference districts, a 
like effort to rally and organize the de- 
nominational Sunday-school forces is also 
frequently made. In a field where the de- 
nomination is relatively strong and the 
prevailing spirit of fellowship in the Sun- 
day schools is denominational rather than 
interdenominational, such conventions 
have a large and helpful place in the spir- 
itual and educational life of their con- 
stituent workers. 

The methods characteristic of these de- 
nominational Sunday-school conventions 
are partly such as pertain to all good Sun- 
day-school gatherings, and partly such as 
arise from conditions of denominational 
life. The aims of the leaders are usu- 
ally more definite, and are susceptible of 


Conventions 


expression in concrete forms—the advo- 
cacy of particular books, courses, enroll- 
ments, lines of missionary effort, ete. 
Whatever points in doctrine and polity 
characterize the denomination, also, may 
be freely dealt with without the need for 
speakers and committeemen to put their 
utterances into generalized form. These 
are some of the advantages of the de- 
nominational convention from the view- 
point of the local school; and they should 
be considered as an offset to the conten- 
tions of those who would reduce or abolish 
the denominational convention and throw 
its force into the common interdenomina- 
tional convention representing the inter- 
ests of all the Sunday schools together. 
In addition to these advantages to the 
school, there are even more obvious ad- 
vantages to the denomination and its 
leaders, through the annual opportunity 
provided by the convention for meeting 
the local and district. leaders, consulting 
with them as to the needs of the field and 
the progress of the work, and presentin 

the claims of the various denominationa 
interests. 

Between those who would dispense with 
all denominational Sunday-school field 
organization as divisive of community 
religious life, and those who would abolish 
or ignore all interdenominational gather- 
ings as promoters of denominational dis- 
loyalty, a large majority would probably 
agree that, so long as denominations exist, 
they ought to live well, and particularly 
ought to do justice to their own Sunday- 
school interests; that in most fields there 
is ample room for both kinds of Sunday- 
school organization; and that, in view of 
the great popular-interest and enthusiasm 
in interdenominational work, there is the 
more need that what denominational con- 
vention work is attempted should be 
wisely planned and thoroughly done, with 
no thought of sectarian division but rather 
in the spirit of responsibility and trustee- 
ship for the particular interests which the 
denomination and its leaders are set to 
maintain and develop. 

EK. M. Frereusson. 

References: 

The American Sunday School Maga- 
zine, Philadelphia, monthly, 1824-30, 
quarterly 1831, published by the Amer- 
ican Sunday School Union, contains 
interesting notes of early Sunday-school 


310 


7s 


Correlated Lesson 


conventions and gatherings, with vi- 
gnettes of local method. The records of 
the National Conventions of 1832 and 
1833, with the replies to the questions 
sent out prior to the former, are pre- 
served at the American Sunday School 
Union’s headquarters in Philadelphia. — 

Foster, E. C. Conventions and How 
to Care for Them. (Philadelphia, 
1908.) On the local handling of a 
Sunday school or other religious con- 
vention. 

International Sunday School 
Evangel, later The World Evangel, 
monthly, 1892-1911. 

Reports of the National and Interna- 
tional conventions from 1869 on may 
be found in a few libraries, or at the 
International Sunday School Associa- 
tion’s office in Chicago; most of those 
from 1887 on are in print. In the 
reports of 1893 and 1902, and in the 
separate report of the International 
Field Workers’ Conference of 1897, will 
be found papers bearing on Sunday- 
school convention method. ~— 

The Sunday School Times, Philadel- 
phia, weekly from 1859 to the present, 
contains especially in the earlier years, 
many notices and reports of current 
convention work, including the only 
record of the National Convention of 
1859. 


CONVERSION.—Srz CHILD CONVER- 
SION; CRISES IN SPIRITUAL DEVELOP- 
MENT; RELIGION, PsyCHOLOGY OF. 


COOK, JEAN PAUL (d. 1886).—The 
son of Rey. Charles Cook, a distinguished 
French Methodist, was born in the south 
of France. He was active in. founding 
Sunday schools in his part of the country, 
in Normandy, and in Paris. Founded and | 
edited Le Magasin des Ecoles du Diman-_ 
che, and also l’E'vangeliste. For two years 
he spent his time visiting all the Protes- 
tant churches of France, traveling thou- 
sands of miles, speaking in hundreds of 
pulpits, and reorganizing a hundred Sun- 
day schools. His expenses were paid by 
the Foreign Sunday School Association 
of the United States of America. (See 
France, Sunday School in.) | 

S. G. AyREs. 


CORRELATED LESSON.—Sre Pri- 
MARY DEPARTMENT, " 





Correspondence Courses 


CORRESPONDENCE COURSES IN 


BIBLE STUDY.—Srre American Inst1- 
TUTE OF SAcRED LITERATURE; BIBLICAL 
_ INSTRUCTION 


BY CORRESPONDENCE; 
CHURCH OF ScOTLAND; HarrrorpD 
ScHoou oF Retiaious Pepagoey ; Inpuc- 
TIVE BIBLE Stupy ; JEws, Revicious Epv- 
CATION AMONG THE; PROTESTANT Epis- 
copaL CHURCH; SuNDAay ScHooL Union, 


_ LONDON. 


COUNTRY BOY.—Szrxz Boys, Country. 


COUNTRY GIRL.—Srr Girt, THE 
CouNTRY. 
COUNTRY SCHOOLS.—Szer Rovrat 


SunDAY ScHOOLS. 


COURSES OF STUDY OR INSTRUC- 
TION.—SrEe BistE Stupy Union Lg&s- 
SONS; CONSTRUCTIVE BIBLE STUDIES; 
DEPARTMENTAL GRADED LESSONS; 
GraDED Lessons, BritisH; GRADED LEs- 
sons, INTERNATIONAL, History OF THE; 
JEWs, Rexticgious EpucatioN AMONG 
THE; LUTHERAN GRADED SysTEM; Pus- 
Lic (ELEMENTARY) ScHooLs (ENG- 
LAND), ReELicgiIous TEACHING IN THE; 
SuNDAyY ScHoou CouNcIL OF EVANGEL- 
IcAL DENOMINATIONS; UNIFORM LESSON 
SYSTEM, 


COVERDALE, MILES (1488-1569).— 
Bible translator, and bishop of Exeter. 
He was born in the North Riding of York- 
shire; was educated at Cambridge to be 
an Augustinian monk, but perhaps as 
early as 1523 was influenced by Protes- 
tantism, left the convent and devoted him- 
self to preaching. 

Coverdale’s was the first complete trans- 
lation of the Bible and was published 
somewhere on the Continent in 1535. 
Nicholson published an edition in London 
in 1537, which appeared “with the King’s 
most gracious license.” Coverdale assisted 
in bringing out an English New Testa- 
ment in Paris, in 1538, and at the same 
time, under the patronage of Thomas 
Cromwell, he superintended the printing 
of the “Great Bible.” 

During his exile Coverdale was pastor 
and school teacher in Bergzabern. In 
1547 he was able to return to England, 
but during Queen Mary’s reign was 
obliged to remain on the Continent, but 


311 


Cowper 


in 1563 he was able to return. Upon his 
death, three years later, he was buried in 
St. Bartholomew’s Church, London. 

His translation was based upon the 
German and Latin versions and upon 
Tyndale’s English translation. He was 
“faithful and harmonious” as a translator 
and his influence upon the King James 
Version was very great, though perhaps 
not many of his renderings have remained 
unchanged. It is said that he was the 
“literary complement” of Tyndale. 

Emity J. FELL. 

References: 

Anderson, Christopher. Annals of 

the English Bible, (New York, 1849.) 

Hoare, H. W. The Evolution of the 

English Bible. (London, 1901.) 

Mombert, J. I. A Handbook of the 


English Versions of the Bible. (New 
York, 1883.) 
COWDEN, ROBERT.—See United 


BRETHREN CHURCH. 


COWPER, WILLIAM (1731-1800).— 
The poet, William Cowper, commended 
the Sunday school in a letter which he 
wrote to the Rev. John Newton, dated 
Olney, September 24, 1785, as follows: 
“My dear friend . . . Mr. Scott called 
upon me yesterday; he is much inclined 
to set up a Sunday school, if he can raise 
a fund for that purpose. Mr. Jones has 
had one some time at Clifton, and Mr. 
Unwin writes me word that he has been 
thinking of nothing else day and night, 
for a fortnight. It is a wholesome meas- 
ure, that seems to bid fair to be pretty 
generally adopted, and for the good effects 
that it promises, deserves well to be so. 
I know not, indeed, while the spread of 
the gospel continues so limited as it is, 
how a reformation of manners, in the 
lower class of mankind, can be brought 
to pass; or by what other means the utter 
abolition of all principle among them, 
moral as well as religious, can possibly 
be prevented. Heathenish parents can 
only bring up heathenish children; an 
assertion nowhere oftener or more clearly 
illustrated than at Olney, where children, 
of seven years of age infest the streets 
every evening with curses and songs, to 
which it would be unseemly to give their 
proper epithet. Such urchins as these 
could not be so diabolically accomplished, 


Cowper-Temple Clause 


unless by the connivance of their parents. 
It is well, indeed, if in some instances 
their parents be not. themselves their in- 
structors. Judging by their proficiency, 
one can hardly suppose any other. It is, 
therefore, doubtless an act of the greatest 
charity to snatch them out of such hands, 
before the inveteracy of the evil shall have 
made it desperate.” (Cowper, William. 
Correspondence arranged TF GSY 
Thomas Wright. v. 2, p. 358.) 
S. G. AYREs. 
References: 

Hayley, William. 
Posthumous Writings of 
Cowper. (London, 1803.) 

Smith, Goldwin. Life of William 
Cowper. (London, 1898.) 


COWPER-TEMPLE CLAUSE.—SrE 
Pusiic (ELEMENTARY) ScHooLs (ENG- 
LAND), RELIGIOUS TEACHING IN THE. 


The Infe and 
William 


CRADLE ROLL, THE.—Aisn and Scope. 
The Cradle Roll aims to deepen the feel- 
ing of responsibility of parents for im- 
parting early spiritual impressions and 
training in the baby’s life. It seeks to 
establish a closer bond of sympathy be- 
tween church and home through interest 
in the youngest children. Its membership 
includes children from birth to three or 
four years of age. 

The Need. The world’s average birth 
rate is 70 a minute, 4,200 an hour, 100,800 
a day, 36,792,000 a year. One-half of 
these are born in Asia and about 3,000,000 
annually in North America. The world’s 
population is practically renewed in forty- 
five years. The task of the church is to 
reach and teach as many as possible in 
each generation and its hope lies in child- 
hood. 

Origin and History. The Cradle Roll 
idea originated with Mrs. Alonzo Pettit 
and was further developed by her sister, 
Mrs. Juliet Dimock Dudley, both associ- 
ated as “infant class teachers” in the Cen- 
tral Baptist Church of Elizabeth, N. J. 
The idea grew from a birthday book in 
which Mrs. Pettit began in 1877 to keep 
a classified list of birthdays of the chil- 
dren belonging to her class whose ages 
ranged from four to twelve years. Op- 
posite each name and address were sug- 
gested a Scripture text and hymn. Each 
birthday was recognized by an offering 


312 


Cradle Roll 


brought by the child corresponding to its 
age, to be used for world-wide missions. 
In 1878 the birthday offerings were first 
sent from Mrs. Pettit’s “Baby Band” to 
the Woman’s Baptist Foreign Missionary 
Society. 

In 1880 a little boy brought a birthday 
penny for a child one year old. Then be- 
gan the custom of adding names to the 
birthday book of little ones too young to 
attend Sunday school. In 1883 Mrs. 
Dudley kept in the back of her visiting 
book a list of babies and little children 
too young to attend regularly. In 1884 
“Cradle Roll” was written over this list. 
No child was counted as a Cradle Roll 
member until the mother gave her con- 
sent and a ten cent initiation fee was paid. 
Sometimes the Primary children paid the 
fee from their birthday money. The pay- 
ment of ten cents made an annual mem- 
ber, and the payment of $1.00 a life mem- 
ber, which expired when the child was 
seven years old. A certificate was con- 
templated to denote Cradle Roll member- 
ship, but none was issued by the Baptist 
Board until 1898. It reads as follows: 
“This is to certify that is a mem- 
ber of the Cradle Roll of the Woman’s 





Baptist Foreign Missionary Society.” A 


new certificate was sent annually by this 
society on each birthday until the child 
was promoted to the Beginners’ class. In 
1906 a permanent form was adopted and 
the words, “is an annual member,” were 
added. No recognition of the Sunday 


school appeared unless “Through the 





Primary Department of Sunday 
school” was written, showing where the 
name had been secured. 

Probably the first wall roll was made 
and used by Mrs. R. B. Doughty, “infant 
class teacher” of the Tabernacle M. E. 
Church, Camden, N. J. In 1879 she be- 
gan to add to her class list the names of 
children under four to send to the home 
missionary society. In 1884 she framed 
these names on a wall roll decorated with 
angel faces and lettered at the top, “Moth- 
ers’ Jewels of Tabernacle M. E. Church.” 
A new roll was made each year. About 


1893 she hegan giving home-made certi- 


ficates of membership as there were no 
printed ones available. These were prob- 
ably the first certificates given out. 


Development and Growth. During the — 
next few years a few articles describing — 


Cradle Roll 


the Cradle Roll appeared in the Sunday 
School Tvmes, the International Evangel, 
and various Sunday-school periodicals. 
The Cradle Roll did not meet general 
favor, as the following extracts from an 
article published in the Sunday School 
Times of June 12, 189%, indicate: “We 
fear the encroachment of the Cradle Roll 
because it seems to say to the parents, ‘The 
Sunday school claims your child.’ There 
will be less responsibility for the religious 
up-bringing of the child in the home. For 
this reason it must be feared that the 
Cradle Roll is a wrong tendency, if not a 
dangerous one. It would hardly 
seem wise, even at three years of age, to 
identify a child with things outside of his 
home. We say there should be no thought 
of identifying the child with the Sunday 
school until he is three or four years of 
age. Even then, it would seem fitting that 
the child should be brought by the par- 
ents’ own volition, rather than at the solic- 
itation of the Sunday school. Plainly, the 
Sunday school has no right to the Cradle 
Roll.” 

_ Mr. W. C. Hall, the superintendent of 
the Tabernacle Presbyterian Sunday 
school of Indianapolis, became the cham- 
pion of the Cradle Roll. He replied, “The 
Cradle Roll tends to make parents feel 
their responsibility the more. Every Sun- 
day school has a right to have and ought 
to have a Cradle Roll. God will surely 
bless the efforts to place children under 
the instruction of God’s consecrated Pri- 
mary workers.” Mr. Hall’s influence 
helped greatly to give the Cradle Roll idea 
to the world. He also prepared and issued 
in September, 1896, the first printed 
Cradle Roll certificate. This certificate 
reads: 


“Suffer little children to come unto me, 
ind forbid them not, for of such is the King- 
lom of Heaven.” 

Mee te to Certify that ............c.6.<. 
30rn 


las been accepted 
8 a Member of 
THE TABERNACLE SUNDAY SCHOOL 


Primary Department 


a... name entered this......... day 
| ee 18.., on our 
CRADLE ROLL 
TEA Salata eth a's ao a6 a Superintendent. 
AA Ae ae Principal. 
ES ee Pastor. 


313 


Cradle Roll 


National Interest and Promotion. In 
1896, Mrs. Dudley spoke at the Interna- 
tional Convention in Boston, on “Primary 
Appliances,” but no mention is made of 
the Cradle Roll. During the Atlanta Con- 
vention, 1899, Miss Annie Harlow de- 
scribed the Cradle Roll as one strand of 
a threefold cord to bind the home and 
Sunday school closer together. At Denver, 
1902, Mrs. Pettit spoke at the Primary 
Conference on “The Origin and Purpose 
of the Cradle Roll.” At Toronto, 1905, 
the Cradle Roll was given first place in 
the Elementary Standard of Excellence. 
Since 1902 it has been reported in the 
Sunday-school statistics of the triennial 
conventions of the International Sunday 
School Association. The present enroll- 
ment is over 1,000,000 in more than 44.- 
000 Cradle Rolls. The five largest Cradle 
Rolls reported during 1913-14 were: 


St. Paul’s Church, Halifax, N. S........ 
First Christian Church, Portsmouth, O. 800 
Earlscourt, Methodist, Toronto, Ont.... 743 
Grand Ave., Methodist, Milwaukee, Wis. 617 
First M. E. Church, Brazil, Ind......... 453 


The first of ten points required in the 
Dayton minimum standard of an efficient 
Sunday school is “A Cradle Roll.” 

At the council meeting of Elementary 
workers representing forty-six states and 
provinces, during the International Sun- 
day School Convention, Chicago, IIL, 
June, 1914, the following was recom- 
mended as a 


CRADLE ROLL STANDARD 


1. A Cradle Roll Superintendent. 

2. Systematic effort to secure members 
from birth to three years. 

3. Public record of names and permanent 
card index or book record, including baby’s 
name, address, birth, age, parents’ names, 
promotions, etc. 

4. Prompt recognition of birthdays. 

5. Suitable remembrance in case of sick- 
ness or death. 

6. All removals and the cause registered. 

7. Babies welcomed as visitors whenever 
present. ' 

8. A Cradle Roll Day annually. 

9. An occasional social affair for mothers 
and babies. 

10. Mothers and babies invited on special 
days. 

11. Babies and mothers visited in 
homes. 

12. Mothers helped in the babies’ care and 
training by literature or Mothers’ Meetings. 

13. Cradle Roll members publicly pro- 
moted and enrollment secured in Beginners’ 
class or department. 


their 


Cradle Roll 


14. A Cradle Roll Class in the Beginners’ 
Department if children attend before formal 
promotion. 

15. No child may continue as a Cradle Roll 
member after the fourth birthday. Trans- 
fer should be made to the supervision of the 
Beginners’ Superintendent or class. 


Supplies. Every denominational pub- 
lishing house has a variety of Cradle Roll 
supplies, such as enrollment and _ birth- 
day cards, certificates, wall rolls, and leaf- 
lets describing the work. Some home- 
made supplies are beautiful, and wall rolls 
are printed and home-made. The latter 
may be decorated with inexpensive pic- 
tures, or those cut from magazines. 
Names strung on ribbons may be sus- 
pended from an appropriate picture. A 
real cradle is sometimes used. A _ birth- 
day book by months, a calling book by 
streets, and a membership book, alpha- 
betically arranged, will simplify the 
records of a large Cradle Roll. Prompt- 
ness and regularity in details are essen- 
tial. 

Studies are available for mothers to use 
at home with older Cradle Roll children, 
or for use with the group of children under 
four years of age, who may attend Sunday 
school in the Beginners’ Department. 
Some beautiful songs have been written 
for the Cradle Roll. 

Possibilities and Methods. Girls from 
the Primary and Junior grades are some- 
times appointed as “little mothers” to 
deliver birthday cards, invitations, or 
other Cradle Roll literature to the homes 
and, when old enough, to bring the chil- 
dren to Sunday school. On Children’s 
Day, Rally Day, Christmas, Easter, Cradle 
Roll Day, and Promotion Day the plans 
should include the Cradle Roll. At least 
once a year a Cradle Roll party or recep- 
tion should be given, also a monthly or 
quarterly mothers’ meeting. 

Results. The Cradle Roll is often the 
means by which the pastor, superintend- 
ent and Sunday-school workers may enter 
the homes of families indifferent to the 
church; may awaken new interest in 
Christian homes; secure members for the 
church, for mothers’ meetings and parents’ 
departments, it may provide interesting 
work for Sunday-school children who se- 
cure names and information in regard to 
the babies. The Cradle Roll starts little 
children in the right way. Also system- 
atic calling and the faithful personal min- 


314 


Cranfield 


istry of the visitors help to secure im- 
portant results. 
Mrs. Mary Foster BryNeir. — 


CRANFIELD, THOMAS (1758-1838). 
—Born in London of humble origin, 
throughout his. life, through his kindness 
and unstinted generosity to others, he 
remained a poor man. He was first ap- 
prenticed to a tailor, but afterwards en- 
tered the army. Upon returning to Lon- 
don he was converted under the ministry 
of the celebrated Rev. William Romaine 
of Blackfriars. Filled with an earnest 
desire to serve others, he learned to read, 
and began. to labor among the brick- 
makers, establishing a Sunday school in 
Kingsland toward the close of 1791. 
Finding that remarkable results followed 
this experiment, he devoted his life to 
promoting the formation of Sunday 
schools, in which children and illiterate 
people were taught to read the Bible. 

In his memoir, particulars are given 
of about twenty schools which were estab- 
lished through his influence in different 
districts of the metropolis. From 1791 
to the time of his death he was an apostle 
of the Sunday-school movement. The 
difficulties of this pioneer work can hardly 
be exaggerated; but nothing turned him 
from his purpose. He possessed real de- 
votion, true piety, love for children, and 
the native instinct of the teacher. He 
would hire a room, and canvass the dis- 
trict for pupils and teachers. Towards 
the close of his life, he became deeply 
impressed with the need of beginning re- 
ligious training early in life, and in 1830, 
he opened an Infants’ School in the Mint, 
where twenty-nine years before he had 
established an ordinary Sunday school, 
He took personal oversight of the Infant 
Class work, and had a regular member. 
ship of over one hundred little children. 

He was associated in Southwark with 
the celebrated Rev. Rowland Hill (q.v.), 
In the autumn of 1799, he with three 
others, waited upon Mr. Hill, and askec¢ 
that he would agree to unite the Sunday 
schools of South London with his largt 
school at Surrey Chapel, and form ont 
society. The request was favorably re 
ceived, and on September 12, 1799, ¢ 
meeting was held at Surrey Chapel, form 
ing the association first known as “Surrei 
Chapel Sunday School Society,” and after 


Creeds, Place of 


School Society.” 

Mr. Cranfield’s labors deserve to be 
held in memory, as they are typical of 
the spirit of the early Sunday-school 
leaders, whose enthusiasm and devotion 
‘made possible the wonderful growth of 
the movement. 


Reference: 
The Useful Christian; a Memoir of 
Thomas Cranfield. (Wondon, 1838.) 


CREEDS, PLACE OF, IN RELIGIOUS 
EDUCATION.—The term “creed” may be 
applied in a general way to any formal 
statement of doctrines believed in, such 
vas the Decree of Chalcedon, the Augsburg 
/Confession, the Westminster Confession, 
the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Saybrook 
‘Platform. More specifically, it is applied 
ito such statements only as have won for 
themselves a place in public worship— 
short, comprehensive, reverent avowals of 
‘belief. Of such creeds, the Christian 
Church has two which stand sanctioned by 
the usage of centuries. These are the 
Apostles’ Creed, which can be traced back 
to the second century, but reached its final 
form only in the sixth, and the Nicene 
Creed, which dates back to the Council at 
Nicewa (A. D. 325) though subsequently 
modified. | 

It was but natural that the Church 
should instruct those seeking baptism. We 
read that the three thousand who received 
Peter’s word on the day of Pentecost “con- 
‘tinued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching 
and fellowship.” In their case instruc- 
tion seems to have followed baptism, and 
it was doubtless of an informal sort. With 
the development of the Church, however, 
a definite system of catechetical instruc- 
tion was instituted as a preliminary to 
baptism. While the earliest manual for 
catechumens that has come down to us, 
the “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” 
deals rather with the Christian life than 
with doctrine, the teaching of doctrine is 
implied in the First Apology of Justin 
Martyr (about A, D. 153), and it is clear 
that by the beginning of the third century 
the imparting of a creed was an essential 
part of this instruction. In his Catechet- 
ical Lectures of A. D. 348, Cyril of Jeru- 
salem delivered to the candidates for bap- 
tism a detailed exposition ‘of the creed of 
the Jerusalem church; and after they had 


CAREY BONNER. 

















315 
wards called the “Southwark Sunday 


Creeds, Place of 


received baptism he explained its mysteries 
and ritual, together with the rite of con- 
firmation and the Lord’s Supper. He 
urged them to learn the creed by heart, 
but warned them not to write it down and 
on no account to divulge it to the un- 
baptized. In the Western Church some 
form of the Apostles’ Creed was solemnly 
imparted to candidates and they were re- 
quired to learn it by heart, being forbidden 
to write it. They then repeated it just be- 
fore baptism, this being termed the reddi- 
tio, as the imparting was the traditio, of 
the symbol of their faith. The Lord’s 
Prayer was communicated with like 
solemnity. 

The development of the practice of in- 
fant baptism of course rendered prelimi- 
nary instruction of the candidate impos- 
sible. Though with a good deal of diver- 
sity, the practice of the Western Church 
tended definitely toward the separation of 
the rite of confirmation from baptism, 
with which it had originally been asso- 
ciated, and its postponement till an age 
of understanding. The catechetical in- 
struction which had preceded baptism. now 
followed it, as a provision in part for the 
fulfillment of the sponsors’ vows, and as a 
preliminary to confirmation. With educa- 
tion in general, however, the system sank 
more or less into decay in the Middle 
Ages. In one of his public messages the 
Emperor Charlemagne ordered the priests 
to admonish the people to learn the Apos- 
tles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, and 
added: “It is our will and command that 
a suitable discipline be exercised upon 
those who refuse to learn, whether by fast- 
ing or other penalties, until they be will- 
ing to learn.” 

The Protestant reformers, laying all 
emphasis upon the responsible faith of 
the individual, made it the rule that con- 
firmation (gq. v.) should be deferred until 
the child could, in Calvin’s words, “give 
an account of his faith in the face of the 
Church.” ‘They rejected the traditional 
view of the Catholic Church, which held 
confirmation to be a sacrament, and looked 
upon it as the rite by which those bap- 
tized in infancy take upon themselves the 
vows then made in their behalf by parents 
or sponsors. It is, says the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer of the Church of England, 
“to the end that they may themselves, with 
their own mouth and consent, ratify and 


Creeds, Place of 


confirm” the baptismal vows. Calvin 
(q. v.) stated his view in these terms: 
“The best method would be if a form 
were drawn up for this purpose, contain- 
ing and briefly explaining the substance 
of almost all the heads of our religion, in 
which the whole body of the faithful ought 
to concur without controversy. A boy of 
ten years of age would present himself to 
the Church to make a profession of faith, 
would be questioned on each head, and 
give answers to each. If he was ignorant 
of any point, or did not well understand it, 
he would be taught. ‘Thus, while the 
whole Church looked on and witnessed, he 
would profess the one true sincere faith 
with which the body of the faithful, with 
one accord, worship one God. Were this 
discipline in force, it would undoubtedly 
whet the sluggishness of certain parents 
who carelessly neglect the instruction of 
their children as if it did not at all belong 
to them, but who could not then omit it 
without public disgrace; there would be 
much greater agreement in faith among 
the Christian people, and not so much 
ignorance and rudeness; some persons 
would not be so readily carried away by 
new and strange dogmas; in fine, it would 
furnish all with a methodical arrange- 
ment of Christian doctrine.” 

Calvin’s statement is typical of the 
thought of the Protestant reformers in 
this matter. Many catechisms were pub- 
lished throughout the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries, four of which stand out 
after these years of use as having had an 
especially wide and vital influence. They 
are Luther’s Small Catechism (1529), the 
Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the Angli- 
can Catechism (1549, enlarged 1604, re- 
vised 1661), and the Westminster Shorter 
Catechism (1647). All teach the Apos- 
tles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, the 
Lord’s Prayer, and the doctrine of the 
Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Sup- 
per; though they differ in logical order 
and emphasis, and disagree in their views 
of the sacraments, 

Most Protestant churches still hold in 
theory to the principle of catechetical in- 
struction (g. v.); and in the Lutheran 
and Episcopal churches especially it re- 
mains an established institution. Yet on 
the whole, the tendency of recent years 
has been to give it up. Against the teach- 
ing of creeds, in particular, there has been 


316 


1 


Creeds, Place of f 


a somewhat definite reaction. This is, in 
part, because of the better understanding 
of children and their powers. (See In- 
terest and Education.) One should no 
longer expect, as Calvin did, that a boy 
of ten could well understand “the sub- 
stance of almost all the heads of our 
religion,” and on this basis be able for 
himself to “profess the one true sincere 
faith.” But it is quite as much because 
the ancient creeds themselves have lost 
their former place in the life of the 
Church. There are even those who are 
willing to surrender the very idea, and to 
speak with enthusiasm of a creedless 
Christianity. 

This reaction against creeds is due 
mainly to three great movements of 
thought and life in the present time: 
(1) The application of the historical 
method to the study of the Scriptures has 
shown both the irrelevance of many of the 
“proof-texts,” relied upon for the sup- 
port of certain doctrines of the old creeds, 
and the invalidity of the proof-texts 
method in general. At the same time, the 
historian of doctrine has revealed to the 
world what genuinely human documents 
these creeds were in origin. (2) There 
is a pronounced ethical emphasis in the 
religion and theology of our day. Men 
think not so much of doctrine as of life. 
They are beginning to care less about 
heresy than about sin. (3) There is more 
or less distrust abroad of “pure intellect,” 
and of things intellectual in general. The 
fashion of the day in philosophy as in life 
is voluntaristic, intuitional, pragmatic. 
Men care more for results than for logic. 
It is an age of faith, but not of reasoned 
belief. 

These three movements are all good. 
They bid fair to stand among the genuine 
contributions of our time to the experience 
of the race. But there is danger, of course, 
in following them too far or unwisely. It 
is possible for one, playing the mere his- 
torian in the presence of Scripture and 
creed, to fail to grasp the reality of God, 
or to realize the spiritual quality of the 
human experience that underlie both text 
and doctrine. It is possible for sheer 
ethic to fall like a house of cards because 
it lacks foundation in belief. It is possible 
to miss the truth by taking the too eager 
short cut. All these possibilities he open 
in the present, despite of creeds. 


—— ees 








Creeds, Place of 


A creedless church, as a creedless man, 


is an absurdity. One must believe some- 


thing. That something, whatever it be, is 
his private creed. The claim to be without 
a creed may mean that one shifts kalei- 
doscopically from belief to belief without 
consistency of conviction; or, as is often 
the case, that he is naively dogmatic, and 
does not know how much of a creed he 
really possesses. With church or indi- 
vidual, it is not so much a question of 


whether or not to have a creed, as of 


whether or not it is worth possessing, and 
whether or not it is necessary to attempt 
to formulate it in words. That question 
admits of but one answer: It is worth 
while to possess for one’s self sincere con- 
victions, and on occasion to clarify and 
regrasp them by the attempt to put them 
into words. 

But shall we retain the ancient forms? 
That is a question that each must decide 
for himself, as each church will decide for 
itself. On the one hand, the creeds reflect 
the conceptions as well as the language of 
another age, and in certain respects one 
can no longer believe what their writers 
literally meant to say ; also they have often 
served, like the Torah of the Jewish 
scribes, to prison men’s thought rather 
than to set them free, and at times they 
have issued in second-hand rather than in 
personal religion. On the other hand, 
they may be, and to many have been, an 
aid to insight and to experience, and a 
very real help to the formulation of be- 
liefs. Creeds are of value: (1) By mak- 
ing available the spiritual experience of 
the race (quite as valuable certainly as 


_ that of our own generation) ; (2) by tell- 


ing pretty clearly what to avoid, for the 
early Church often had a marvelously 


sure negative instinct that kept it from 


believing the wrong thing, even when it 
did not know how positively to state the 
right thing; and (3) by setting down a 
certain body of fundamental truths that 
far outweigh those other matters of 
thought or expression to which one may 


object. 


What place, now, shall the creed of a 
church occupy in its education of its chil- 
dren? The term “creed” is here used in 


the sense of the church’s body of beliefs, 


be they stated in a form ancient or mod- 
ern, and by whatever name called. 
(1) It is clear that the creed of any 


317% 


Creeds, Place of 


church constitutes the platform or body 
of principles that underlies its efforts to 
educate its children in religion. Religious 
education, as education in general, must 
have purpose. And while it is true that 
that purpose is best conceived in terms of 
the pupil’s own spiritual maturity as one 
able to think and believe for himself, such 
maturity is not to be begotten by a policy 
of keeping from him the beliefs of his 
elders, but rather by their frank and 
sincere presentation of the truth as they 
see it. The question is not, Shall the 
Church’s creed influence its teaching of 
children ? but, How shall the Church most 
wisely use its creed in the religious educa- 
tion of its young? 

(2) The Church can wisely impart its 
creed to its children by social suggestion. 
That is, the Church’s own whole-hearted 
use of that creed in worship, or in the 
various other ways in which it may appro- 
priately give such expression to its beliefs, 
may be frankly open to the children’s 
observation. More than that, they may 
be permitted to share in such worship, and 
to repeat the creed with their elders, just 
as they share in many other things of life 
that they do not yet understand. There 
need be no note of insincerity or of un- 
reality here. The child is simply taken up 
as a child into their own life. There is 
good reason, even, for the child’s mem- 
orizing the creed before he can fully 
understand it, if it be looked upon simply 
as a part of his equipment to share in the 
worship of God. 

(3) The Church can teach to its chil- 
dren the more fundamental of its beliefs 
by story and symbol, and can lead them 
to act in the spirit of its creed long before 
they are ready to comprehend its prin- 
ciples. If due care be taken in the choice 
of stories and symbols, and the appeal to 
the imagination be not spoiled by too 
direct moralizing and premature attempts 
to reason things out for the children, in- 
stead of letting them do their own think- 
ing; and if equal care be taken to lead 
them into types of activity that can really 
mean something to themselves, much can 
be done in childhood to establish the body 
of experience, and the predisposition of 
life that will later ripen normally into 
conviction and find natural intellectual 
expression in a creed. 


(4) The Church ought not to demand a 


Creeds, Place of 


full profession of faith in the articles of 
its creed as a condition of admission to 
communicant membership. It should re- 
member the words of Jesus: “If any man 
will do his will, he shall know of the doc- 
trine.” Insight follows action; creeds are 
more the expression than the condition of 
spiritual experience. The comprehension 
of doctrines, the precise formulation of 
beliefs, the realizing sense of God’s pres- 
ence and love, cannot come first in the 
developing Christian life. It is only by 
living with God and for him that one 
comes to know him and to understand his 
truth. The important thing is that the 
Church should get its children started on 
the life. Its entrance vows should, there- 
fore, be simpler than its creed. They 
should be such as can be taken by boys 
and girls in the early teens, when life’s 
expansion naturally tends to include re- 
ligion. 

(5) Yet admission to membership, 
whether of children or adults, should be 
preceded by definite instruction respecting 
the step they are about to take. ‘This 
instruction should be given by the pastor, 
and should include a frank statement and 
explanation of the Church’s creed, and of 
its hope, that they may in due time, 
through association in the Christian life, 
find themselves in essential agreement in 
matters of belief. In the case of adults, 
the period of instruction may, of course, 
be somewhat shorter than in the case of 
children. For children, it should form a 
natural part of the organized system of 
graded instruction provided by the Sun- 
day school of the Church. While it may 
well include the memorizing of a creed, 
the teaching should appeal to their under- 
standing rather than merely to the mem- 
ory, as has often been true of catechetical 
instruction. 

(6) The Church should make definite 
provision for the growth in knowledge as 
in grace of those who have thus entered 
into its covenant. Its educational work 
is not completed when the candidate has 
been admitted to church membership. It 
is the Church’s further duty and privilege 
to help the young Christian to interpret 
his developing spiritual experience and to 
understand his new visions of life and 
service. Later adolescence, in particular, 
is naturally a time of creed-making. The 
youth’s metaphysical instincts then awak- 


318 


ment in philosophy and religion. 


\ q 
Crises, Spiritual 4 


en. His reason is active. He is not con- 
tent simply to believe without knowing 
why ; and he seeks to systematize his prin- — 
ciples of life. The Church must meet his 
questions with larger knowledge, and must 
offer its creed, not as an authority to be 
obeyed, but as a reasonable insight to be 
won. If the creed is what it ought to be, 
the pastor and teacher will not fear to 
speak frankly with young people in regard 
to it, and to give reasons for the faith 
they cherish. They will rejoice in their 
eagerness to “prove all things,” and to do 
all that can be done to help the young 
people to “hold fast that which is good.” 
L, A. WEIGLE. 


CRISES IN SPIRITUAL DEVELOP- 
MENT.—1. The idea of gradual devel- 
opment has profoundly affected the con- 
ception of the religious life. In Evangel- 
ical Protestantism, at any rate, the tradi- 
tional idea used to be that this must be- 
gin with a marked crisis called conversion, 
preceded by a period of sorrow for sin 
and fear of judgment, and followed by an 
experience of confidence and joy. In some 
forms of evangelical teaching, notably 
Methodist, a second crisis was expected — 
and looked for, that of sanctification, fol- 
lowed by an experience of constant power 
over all sin. Protests were not wanting 
against the exaggerations of this teach- 
ing. Horace Bushnell, in his extremely 
important book on Christian Nurture (Ast 
edition, 1847), criticized with great force 
the current views on conversion as applied 
to children. He maintained that there 
are two principal modes by which the 
Kingdom of God may be extended among 
men. ‘The first is conversion from the 
outside. ‘The second is “by the populat- 
ing force of faith and piety themselves.” 
His objection to the current revivalistic 
methods was that they made nothing 
either of the family or the church, treat- 
ing even the children of Christian parents 
as though “they were all so many Mel- 
chisedecs in their religious nature, only 
not righteous at all—without father, with- 
out mother, without descent.” Bushnell’s 
protest, though worked out quite inde- 
pendently, is in entire harmony with the 
modern stress on evolution and develop- 
Per-— 
haps because of its one-sidedness it failed — 
to win the attention it deserved. 





Crises, Spiritual 


_ Within ‘the last few years a fresh turn 
has been given to the discussion by the 
application of the methods of psychology 
to the facts of religious experience. E. D. 
Starbuck’s work on The Psychology of 
Religion (1899) broke up much new 
ground. William James’s Gifford Lec- 
tures on The Varieties of Religious Ez- 
pervence (1902) proved the precursor to 
a multitude of books on related topics. 
On the whole the result of this work has 
been to reéstablish the position that it 
is through crises, following from and lead- 
ing to growth, that moral and spiritual 
| progress is made. 
_ The present article deals with the two 
critical experiences spoken of as con- 
version and sanctification. It maintains 
that it is in a synthesis of the teaching of 
such writers as Bushnell on growth, and 
of the psychologists on crises, that the 
truth is to be sought. 
_ Conversion. (a) Conversion as a 
Fact. 

Every student of Christian history, and 
every observer of life to-day is confronted 
‘with instances of sudden and abiding 
changes. The often quoted words of G. J. 
Romanes express this most clearly. “St. 
Augustine, after thirty years of age, and 
other Fathers, bear witness to a sudden, 
enduring, and extraordinary change in 
themselves, called conversion. Now this 
experience has been repeated and testi- 
fied to by countless millions of civilized 
men and women in all nations and all 
degrees of culture.” (Thoughts on Re- 
ligion, p. 162.) The popularity of John 
Masefield’s striking poem—The Everlast- 
ing Mercy—with its story of the sudden 
conversion of the drunken poacher, shows 
how strong is the modern interest in such 
experiences. 

This experience has been variously de- 
fined. James’s definition may be taken 
as typical. “To be converted, to receive 
grace, to experience religion, to gain an 
assurance, are so many phrases which 
‘denote the process, gradual or sudden, by 
which a self hitherto divided, and con- 
sciously wrong, inferior, and unhappy, 
becomes unified and consciously right, 
superior, and happy in consequence of its 
firmer hold upon religious realities.” 
(Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 
189.) 

While the distinctively Christian ele- 


319 


Crises, Spiritual 


ment is inadequately expressed by such 
words, they bring out the fact of entrance 
into a new condition. In some cases this 
entrance is made with dramatic sudden- 
ness, in others the old state is slowly left 
behind, and the soul becomes gradually 
conscious that a new era has begun. But 
just as in biological science outbursts of 
intense variation-activity are observed to 
accompany sudden changes in environ- 
ment, so as man responds to previously 
unrecognized spiritual influences he enters 
upon experiences so new that the change 
is described as a passage “from death into 
life,’ or as a “new creation.” 

Similar changes in character and out- 
look upon life, resulting from other than 
religious causes, are constantly noted in 
literature. The transforming power of 
a new affection, suddenly changing a 
coward into a hero, is a commonplace. 
Browning sets forth again and again the 
extreme significance of single moments 
in the history of a soul— 

“While just this or that poor impulse, 
Which for once had play unstifled, 
Seems the whole work of a life-time.” 
(Cf. for other illustrations J. A. Hutton, 

Guidance from Robert Browning in 

Matters of Faith.) 

Hence we escape from the tyranny of 
the idea of development to the general 
recognition of the possibility of sudden 
changes, side by side with, or even con- 
trasted with, the continuous and gradual 
evolution of character. We are right to 
conclude that human nature is made and 
adapted for such changes as are included 
under the word conversion. 

(b) Conversion .and Adolescence. 
Modern psychology, investigating the 
processes of the unfolding human life, has 
reaffirmed with new emphasis the truth 
that conscious religious decision most 
often accompanies the passage from child- 
hood to youth. As childhood is left be- 
hind, as the social sense is quickened 
and the conscience awakes to independent 
judgment, and as the need of personal 
choice as to the conduct of life becomes 
manifest, the way is opened for the con- 
scious surrender of the life to God, for the 
recognition and acceptance of the gift and 
grace of God in Jesus Christ. This is 
well put by G. A. Coe: “If one has not 
been religious in childhood, now is the 
supremely favorable time for conversion; 


Crises, Spiritual 


and if one has been religious, there is 
still need, in most cases, for a personal 
decision and personal acceptance that shall 
supersede the more external habits of 
childhood.” (The Spiritual Life, p. 40.) 

The figures tabulated by Starbuck and 
others as to the age of conversion are in 
full accord with this. Starbuck states that 
“among the females there are two tidal 
waves of religious awakening at about 
thirteen and sixteen, followed by a less 
significant period at eighteen; while 
among the males the great wave is at 
about sixteen, preceded by a wavelet at 
twelve, and followed by a surging up at 
eighteen or nineteen” (op. cit. p. 34). 
The figures of other investigators are in 
general agreement. (See Religion, Psy- 
chology of.) 

While the value of such figures must 
be fully recognized, we are in danger of 
making too wide generalizations from 
them. Thus when Starbuck states that 
“conversion is a distinctively adolescent 
phenomenon,” and that “one may say 
that if conversion has not occurred before 
twenty, the chances are small that it will 
ever be experienced,” the conclusion is 
far too wide. R. H. Hutton pointed out 
long ago that “the high doctrine of con- 
version . . has derived its authority 
from men like St. Paul and John Wesley.” 
Yet each of these men was converted 
when youth had been left behind; and 
the same is true of Ignatius Loyola, 
George Fox, and many other religious 
leaders. The older teaching was right 
in ‘maintaining that such changes may 
take place at any period of human life. 
It was wrong in concluding that phe- 
nomena which were normal in cases of 
conversion in mature life, where the con- 
science was stained by the sense of many 
acts of deliberate wrong-doing, were to 
be looked for in the religious awakening 
of the young. The great value of modern 
psychology, apart from its insistence upon 
the great opportunities found among 
young people, lies in its analysis and ex- 
position of the motives that should be 
appealed to, and in its recognition of the 
difference between the religion of youth 
and maturity. (See Adolescence and its 
Significance. ) 

(c) Synthesis. The apparently conflict- 
ing views of growth and crisis may be 
reconciled by considering the double as- 


320 


Crises, Spiritual 


pect of the work of Christ. There is a 
work for humanity as a whole, a constant 
struggle against evil, a work directed to- 
ward helping man to rise above the sin 
that has infected his race, and brought 
such disastrous consequences to society. 
It is within the Christian Church that 
the influences of this work are most 
powerfully felt. Those whose opening 
years are surrounded by these influences 
are in a very different position from all 
others. Hence we may expect to find in 
them a process of growth, manifest from 
the first. Because this had been so largely 
ignored Bushnell’s protest was justified. 
But there is a second aspect of Christ’s 
work in that it looks towards the recon- 
ciliation of the individual to God. Hence 
while he states that those who would 
enter the Kingdom of God must become 
as little children, he nowhere states that 
natural birth makes one a member of that 
Kingdom. We are not born Christians 
any more than we are born free, only with 
the capacity of becoming free by submis- 
sion to the facts and truth of life, and 
with the capacity of entering into definite 
personal relationship with God by the sur- 
render of self to him, and by accepting 
the new life from him. Hence the great 
divide must be crossed. In some the cross- 
ing is made suddenly, after struggle and 
pain. In others it is made almost or al- 
together unconsciously, the new relation- 
ship to God being recognized, even 
though the time when it was entered 
upon is unknown. But in all cases there 
comes the acknowledgment of something 
wrought in and for us which is a direct 
creative act of God himself, an act 
which may be described with all the 
wealth of language of the New Testa- 
ment, as the birth from above, or the pass- 
ing out of darkness into marvelous light. 
3. Sanctification. The roots of much of 
the modern teaching of a second crisis 
following conversion are to be found in 
John Wesley (q. v.). In sermon 43 on 
The Scripture Way of Salvation he de- 
scribes the first joy that follows conscious 
acceptance, and shows how naturally those 
who experience such a change imagine 
that all sin is gone. But presently temp- 
tations return, and sin revives; “showing 
that it was but stunned before, not dead.” 
It is true that a gradual work of sancti- — 
fication, or inward renewal, has been pro- 


Crises, Spiritual 


ceeding all the time. Men are enabled 
by the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the 
body, and to become more and more alive 
to God. But afterwards he teaches that 
a time comes when the believer is enabled 
by faith to claim full deliverance. Then 
love to God fills the heart, and takes up 
the whole capacity of the soul. As to the 


relation of this crisis to growth he is quite. 


explicit. “I believe this perfection is al- 
ways wrought in the soul by a simple act 
of faith ; consequently in an instant. But 
I believe in a gradual work, both preced- 
ing and following that instant.” (Brief 
Thoughts on Christian Perfection. Works, 
vol. XI, p. 446.) 

From a psychological point of view 
Starbuck explains that “the whole strug- 
gle after conversion, and the consequent 
necessity which many persons feel of pass- 
ing on to ‘a second work of grace,’ grows 
out of the conflict between an old habitual 
life and a new set of functionings which 
have not yet become well-established in 
the nervous mechanism.” ‘A life of har- 
mony cannot be reached until the new set 
of activities has become habitual and 
carry with them a tone of familiarity.” 
(Op. cit. pp. 381, 384.) Later he states 


that “sanctification is the condition in 
_ which one has so completely assimilated 








spiritual truth that he feels himself one 
with it; in which he awakens to the inner 
realization of its meaning; in which he 
attains that state wherein the divine life 
can freely express itself through him” 
(ib. p. 386). 

A different description of the same ex- 
perience is given by T. R. Glover in his 
Nature and Purpose of a Christian 
Society (p. 34ff). There he shows how 
the Christian life begins by a full sur- 


render into the hands of God. This is 


followed by new joy and power. But then 
the old experience repeats itself. Once 


more man stumbles and falls and is dis- 
satisfied with his progress. 


Again life 
grows difficult and miserable. “Once more 


the old story—till at last it is realized 


that grace is not an affair of a moment in 


' the Christian experience, but the whole 
or it.” 


In his article on Sanctification in 


Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible (vol. 4, 
_p. 393), Vernon Bartlet shows that the 


New Testament teaches the reality of a 
state in which Christians can be described 


321 


Cruelty to Children 


as unblamable in holiness. He concludes 
that “it is conceived as realizable by a 
definite act of faith—claiming and appro- 
priating its rightful experience by an act 
of will informed by the living energy of 
the Holy Spirit—rather than as the 
cumulative result of a slow, instinctive 
process after conversion.” 

The records of Christian history appear 
to be decisive as to the fact that many 
have reached, in a second definite crisis, 
the level of experience just described. But 
it is a mistake to make such critical ex- 
periences normative for all Christians. 
Still more is it dangerous to make “holi- 
ness” or “sanctification” a department of 
Christian life, instead of the whole of it. 
Both in conversion and in sanctification 
the attention should be fixed less on the 
act through which the experience is at- 
tained, than on the content of the new 
life that is desired. We must not pre- 
scribe any special method for the divine 
operations in human souls, at any period 
of the Christian life. But, on the other 
hand, we must not, because of aversion 
from any particular modes of teaching, 
limit in any degree the power of divine 
grace, 

Witrrip J. Mouton. 

References: 

Cutten, G. B. The Psychological 
Phenomena of Christianity. (London, 
1909.) 

Hall, G. 8. Adolescence. 2v. 
Mork, OOS.) i; 

Jackson, George. The Fact of Con- 
version. (London, 1908.) 

Leuba and others. Articles in the 
American Journal of Religious Psy- 
chology. 

Steven, George. 
the Christian Soul. 


(New 


The Psychology of 
(London, 1911.) 


CROUSE, ISAAC.—Srxr UNITED BRETH- 
REN CHURCH. 


CRUELTY TO CHILDREN, THE NA- 
TIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVEN- 
TION OF.—An organization that grew out 
of a smaller London Society. The London 
Society was formed in 1884, and the Rev. 
Benjamin Waugh was appointed its first 
Honorary Secretary. He conceived and 
brought about the larger organization 
and became its first Director, a post which 
he held until 1905. 


Cruelty to Children 


The National Society was granted a 
Royal Charter in 1895, and its ratson 
d’étre is found in this extract from the 
Charter : 


1. To prevent the public and private 
wrongs of children and the corrup- 
tion of their morals. 

2. To take action for the enforcement of 
laws for their protection. 

3. To provide and maintain an organiza- 
tion for the above objects. 

4. To do all other such lawful things as 
are incidental or conducive to the 
attainment of the above objects. 


The Society has 258 Inspectors; men 
specially selected and trained for their 
work. Their principal duty is to inquire 
into cases of neglect and cruelty. These 
cases are in the main, reported by members 
of the general public. The first duty of 
an Inspector is to seek an improvement 
of the conditions of the child in the home 
in which he lives. This desirable end is 
obtained by visits, kindly warning and 
friendly supervision. During the com- 
pleted year (1913-14) out of 54,772 cases, 
48,212 were successfully warned and only 
2,349 cases had to be prosecuted. The 
care taken with cases before going into 
Court and the fact that only extreme cases 
are so taken, is revealed in the statement 
that only fifty-one were discharged. 

The Society has had much to do with 
instituting legislation, notably in the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act of 
1889 ; an amending Act in 1894; a further 
amending Act in 1904, and then in the 
Children Act 1908. In other forms of 
legislation, the Society has taken a con- 
siderable part. 

Apart from the work of the Inspectors, 
the Society is a great voluntary agency 
with over 15,000 helpers in England, Ire- 
land and Wales. These helpers distribute 
literature, by means of which cases are 
reported, and collect funds by which the 
organization is maintained. In the year 
1913-14 the income of the Society was 
£81,713. 

There is a children’s section—The 
League of Pity—in which more fortunate 
children are invited to render help in the 
interests of the unhappy children who 
are objects of the Society’s solicitude. 
Members of the League do not collect 
money ; they save it, and are taught those 


322 


lessons of self-sacrifice that are likely to 
be of value to them in after life. 
Summed up in a sentence, the object 
of the Society is to secure for every child 
in the land the right to live an endurable 


life. 
ROBERT PARR. 


CULDEES.—This was the name of an 
ancient monastic order in Ireland and 
Scotland whose origin and end are alike 
involved in obscurity. In general, the 
period of its existence extends from the 
sixth to the fourteenth century. The 
Island of Iona was its chief headquarters. 
The members of the community were 
largely recluses, but not pledged to celi- 
bacy. They are said to have had “Insti- 
tutions for the instruction of the young 
on the Sabbath day and that they con- 
tinued them to a period as late as the 


tenth century.” 
S. G. AYREs. 


References: 
Alexander, W. L. Jona. 
phia, n. d.) 
Jaffray, Robert. Jona, the Sacred 
Isle. (New York, 1907.) | 
King. The Culdees and thew Re- 
mains. ‘ia 
McLauchlan, Thomas. The Early 
Scottish Church. (Hdinburgh, 1865.) 


(Philadel- 


ing a suggestion of Herbart (q. v.), Ziller. 


(1817-1883) formulated the pedagogical 
principle that the natural order in which - 


Culture Epoch Theory | 


| 


CULTURE EPOCH THEORY.—Follow-. 





to present the material of education to — 


a child is the order in which that material | 


has been acquired in the experience of the 
race. 
who once said that “Although the world 
in general advances, the youth must always 
start again from the beginning, and as 
an individual traverse the epochs of the 
world’s culture.” 
history and literature should constitute 


the central core of the curriculum about | 


which all other studies should be concen- 


trated. His “culture-epoch theory” and | 
his “theory of concentration,” reénforc- | 
ing one another, constitute his distinc- | 
tive contribution to the Herbartian peda- 


Sogy. 

In practical result, the culture-epoch 
theory points to much the same conclu- 
sions as the more modern Recapitulation 


This is quite the spirit of Goethe, | 


Ziller further held that | 





Cumberland Presbyterian Church 


‘Theory (q. v.) with which it is often con- 
fused. It rests upon quite different 
grounds, however, lacking the appeal to 
biology and psychology that is character- 
istic of the newer theory, and basing itself 
rather upon the idea that the culture 
material of. any given stage of human 
progress constitutes the only natural and 
logical basis for understanding the suc- 
ceeding stage. This idea was keenly crit- 
icized by Lange, himself an Herbartian. 
In general, the theory is now looked upon 
as of rather dubious value. The present 
environment of the child constitutes an 
inevitable apperceptive basis for the un- 
derstanding of newer experiences, and one 
far more significant than can be provided 
in any scheme of education through cul- 


ture epochs. 
L. A. WEIGLE. 
References: 
De Garmo, Charles. Herbart and the 
Herbartians. (New York, 1896.) 


Henderson, E. N. Textbook in the 
_ Principles of Education. (New York, 
1912.) 
| Lange, Karl. 
York, 1898.) 


Apperception. (New 


CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN 
‘CHURCH, SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK OF 
THE The first denominational Sunday- 
| school literature produced by this church 
was in 1874, and consisted of a monthly 
journal called Sunday Morning. It was 
designed especially for the use of teachers 
/and advanced pupils. Rays of Light was 
next added for smaller children, and also, 
the Lesson Leaf. Two monthlies in 
weekly parts, The Gem, and Our Lambs, 
Were also a little later published. 

There was steady growth of the Sun- 
| day-school work of the church, with cor- 
‘Tesponding improvement of its literature, 
from this time until May, 1906. The 
j circulation of all the Sunday-school peri- 
| oye for that year was 175,718 copies. 
They consisted of Senior Quarterly, Home 
Department Quarterly, Intermediate 

Quarterly, Junior Quarterly, Sunday 
School Work, The Gem, Our Lambs, Les- 
son Leaf, Bible Picture Cards, and Bible 
Picture Rolls. 

|. The denomination at that time num- 
bered about 18,500, with 10,600 in Sun- 
day school. In May, 1906, the General 
) Assemblies of the Cumberland Presby- 












323 


Curriculum 


terian and the Presbyterian U.S.A. 
Churches undertook to merge the former 
church into the latter. More than half the 
membership of the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church refused to be merged. All 
the general and most of the congrega- 
tional property was in the hands of the 
Presbyterian Church U.S.A., and in 
many states suits were begun to deter- 
mine the rights of title to same. For some 
years, therefore, the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church was left with no publishing 
house. The Sunday-school literature 
formerly issued by the Board of Publica- 
tion had been discontinued and Presby- 
terian U.S.A. literature was substituted. 
Consequently in 1906 the Cumberland 
Presbyterians had no Sunday-school liter- 
ature. 

In this emergency the Synod of Ten- 
nessee arranged with Rev. J. R. Good- 
pasture, D.D., to edit, publish, and cir- 
culate a specified denominational liter- 
ature for the benefit of the whole denom- 
ination. ‘This literature consisted of a 
Senior, Junior, and Primary quarterly, 
Lesson Leaf, and two monthlies in weekly 
parts, Our Boys and Girls, afterwards 
changed to Visitor, and Our Little Chil- 
dren. In 1908 this literature was pro- 
duced by Dr. Goodpasture under the gen- 
eral supervision of the Board of Publica- 
tion of the Assembly instead of that of 
the Synod of Tennessee. In 1910, by de- 
cree of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, 
the church regained possession of its pub- 
lishing house and, with Dr. J. R. Good- 
pasture as editor, the literature was 
thenceforth published by the house. In 
1911 the Advanced Quarterly for teachers 
and adult classes, sixty-four pages, was 
added to those above named. 

The church has a Board of Sunday 
Schools and Young People’s Work. The 
number of schools and the circulation of 
the literature have steadily increased. 
The headquarters of the denomination are 
at Nashville, Tenn. 

J. R. GOODPASTURE. 


CURIOSITY.—Srr Mortrves, THE Ap. 
PEAL TO, IN RELIGIOUS EpucaTion. 


CURRICULUM FOR RELIGIOUS IN- 
STRUCTION.—Religious education in- 
cludes more than the formulated curri- 
culum or course of study. On its informal 


Curriculum 


side it consists in the transmission of 
religious ideas and experience by means 
of the reciprocal processes of imitation 
and example. Each generation, by actu- 
ally participating in the activities and 
ceremonies of the religious fellowship, 
the Church and the family, imbibes as it 
were the spirit and ideals of the preced- 
ing generation as these are modified by 
the changing conditions under which the 
entire process takes place. Formal reli- 
gious education consists in the conscious 
and systematic effort on the part of the 
mature members of the religious group or 
fellowship to initiate the immature mem- 
bers and converts by means of solemn rites 
and ceremonies, and by means of patient 
training and instruction into the mys- 
teries and privilege of their own religious 
experience. 

The problem of the curriculum in its 
larger aspects is the problem of formal 
religious instruction. In its entirety, 
therefore, it includes religious instruc- 
tion in the home, in the church, and in 
correlated agencies and institutions. It 
concerns itself further with properly re- 
lating the instruction and training fur- 
nished by any one institution to that given 
by each of the others, with the proper 
correlation of all the elements that enter 
into the entire process, in such a way that 
together they shall furnish a complete 
and systematic program of religious edu- 
cational procedure. 

In this larger program of religious edu- 
cation the modern Sunday school occu- 
pies a place and performs a function of 
outstanding significance and importance. 
The Sunday school more than any other 
institution among all those engaged in the 
work of religious instruction has sought 
to formulate definitely its aim and to 
choose both its materials and methods 
with a view to accomplishing the purpose 
of all religious educational endeavor. The 
problem of the Sunday school curriculum 
is therefore the problem of religious edu- 
cation in general. It includes a consider- 
ation of the place and conduct of worship, 
the material or subject matter of instruc- 
tion, expressional activities, and the rela- 
tionship of worship, instruction, and self- 
expression to each other in the Sunday- 
school program. (See Religious Educa- 
tion, Aims of.) 

Worship. The service of worship is of 


324 


9 


Curriculum 


special importance. The complete and 
effective curriculum will provide ade- 
quately both for emphasis on worship and 
for training in worship. There should 
be a place for meditation and for com- 
munion, with enough of the ritualistic 
element to make the service both dignified 
and sacred, though vitality should not be 
sacrificed to form. The purpose should 
be the cultivation of certain attitudes and 
feelings which characterize the deeper 
religious life and experience. Among 
these are to be mentioned especially 
reverence and adoration, faith and loyalty, 
thankfulness and good will. These emo- 
tional reactions are vital not only be- 
cause of their influence on conduct but 
because of the peace of mind and spirit- 
ual uplift and strengthening which come 
from communion and prayer. 

The solemn services and ritualistic 
forms of worship may be made as rich 
and as full of meaning to children and 
adolescents as to older people who find 
in them comfort and inspiration. The 
service must, however, be suited both in 
character and in duration to the age and 
understanding of the pupils. The prayer 
and hymns should give expression to the 
gratitude and voice the petitions and 
aspirations of the group. ‘The music 
should be in keeping with the purpose 
of the service as a whole, and should con- 
tribute its full share toward stimulating 
and strengthening those attitudes of mind 
and heart which deepen and enrich the 
spiritual life. (See Worship in the 8S. 8.) 

Subject Matter. The subject matter 
of religious instruction must be regarded 
not as an end in itself, the intellectual 
mastery of which is the sole purpose of 
its existence, but rather as a stimulus to 
the developing religious consciousness of 
the pupil and as a means of leading him 
gradually into a richer and fuller reli- 
gious experience. The chief business of 
those who instruct in religion is to dis- 
cover the points of contact between the 
religious experience of the pupil and the 
religious values of the subject matter to. 
the end that the instruction provided by 
the curriculum may furnish both the in- | 
spiration and the guiding principles for | 
a normal and complete religious develop- | 
ment. In the materials of instruction 
that have been used in Christian educa- 
tion in the past there are discoverable cer- 


Curriculum 


tain permanent elements amid a more or 
less fluctuating mass of nonessentials. 
In this instruction the Bible itself has not 
always occupied a place of first importance 
and has never been the sole textbook. Its 
precepts and principles, its ideals and 
standards have been fundamental, but the 
Book itself has not always been in the 
hands of the pupils. 

At the beginning Christian instruction 
consisted largely in personal testimony 
and example. Only gradually did it take 
definite and systematic form in the insti- 
tution of the Christian catechumenate. 
The list of topics for Christian teaching 
in general use during the early Christian 
centuries included, in addition to the 
Gospels, Acts, and Epistles (then still in 
process of being assembled), selected 
books of the Old Testament, together with 
still other writings prepared especially as 
books of religious instruction and pre- 
served for us in part in the collection of 
the so-called Apocrypha. In succeeding 
centuries, including those of the Middle 
Ages, the formal religious instruction of 
the Christian Church, aside from the serv- 
ices of worship and preaching, was re- 
stricted largely to the preparation of the 
candidates for baptism. The subject 
matter for this instruction was very 
meager, consisting for the most part only 
of a short summary of the creed, the ten 
commandments, and the established cate- 
gory of cardinal sins. From this limited 
material, however, there developed the 
Christian catechism, which, during the 
Reformation period, became the chief 
textbook of religious instruction. (See 
Catechetical Instruction.) 

The rapid development of systematic 
religious instruction following the Re- 
formation gave to the Bible its rightful 
place of first importance in Christian edu- 
cation. At the same time there were 
added textbooks of information about the 
_ Bible, its geography, its manners and cus- 
toms, textbooks on church history, ethics, 
-Inissions, hymnology, and other subjects 
bearing more or less directly upon the 
Teligious life and its development and 
equipment for intelligent and effective 
churchmanship. The constant multipli- 
cation and improvement of textbooks of 
Teligious instruction and the consequent 
expansion of the course of study is in 
entire harmony with the religious pur- 


325 


Curriculum 


pose which all such instruction is intended 
to serve. The classic hymns and an- 
thems of the Church constitute one of the 
chief sources of emotional uplift and spir- 
itual quickening. Systematic study of 
the fundamentals of Christian ethics as 
applied to modern life gives the student 
an acquaintance with Christian ideals and 
standards while an acquaintance with mis- 
sionary and church history sets in clear 
light the growth and expansion of the 
Christian Church since apostolic times. 
From a vague and other-worldly interest, 
religion, under the influence of this 
broader study, becomes practical because 
vitally related to present-day life. 

Viewed pedagogically, the progress 
made both in the theory and method of 
religious education during the past cen- 
turies is definite and measurable. Apply- 
ing the net results of that progress and 
development to the Sunday-school prob- 
lem, we discover that in religious educa- 
tion at its best the child and his religious 
needs are permitted to determine both the 
content and arrangement of the course of 
study. The subject matter of instruction 
is being increasingly adapted to the na- 
tural interest, the capacity, and the pre- 
vious training of the pupil at each suc- 
cessive stage of his development. The 
principles and teachings of the Bible are 
being’ interpreted to the child on his own 
plane, in his own language, and by the 
use of methods that he can understand 
and appreciate. In the elementary grades, 
nature and home-life stories find increas- 
ing recognition and use, together with 
stories from the Bible selected in both 
instances with a view to teaching the same 
truth of God’s love and care. In the 
upper grades, Church history, missions, 
and life-work studies form an integral 
part of the course of instruction. At the 
same time Bible history, the life of 
Christ, his teachings and the teachings 
of the prophets and apostles are in their 
right place and at the right time taught 
more thoroughly and more effectively than 
in the past. And this more systematic in- 
struction is achieving larger results with 
less friction and waste than has ever be- 
fore been realized in the work of the Sun- 
day school. 

Expressional Actwities. As the final 
test of man’s religion is found in his 
daily conduct, so the proof of effective 


Curriculum 


religious teaching lies in the expressional 
activities which it prompts and fosters in 
the pupils. Religion involves the whole 
of consciousness as a unit and includes 
the volitional as well as the intellectual 
and emotional factors. The aim of reli- 
gious education is the development in the 
pupil of a normal and balanced religious 
life, in which the intellectual element 
shall temper the emotional and rightly 
guide the will; in which knowledge shall 
be quickened by lofty emotions, and in 
which feeling and intellect shall in turn 
be subject to a disciplined will; where 
knowledge, love, and service shall each 
contribute their full share to the enriching 
and vitalizing of the religious life. To 
this end the complete Sunday-school pro- 
gram must provide an opportunity for 
the self-expression of the pupil, first of 
all in such a way as to assure a full mas- 
tery and appreciation of the truth. There 
should be on the part of the pupil an in- 
tellectual appropriation of the knowl- 
edge factor of religious instruction, to- 
gether with an intelligent appreciation of 
its religious significance. This implies 
that the pupils will participate in all of 
the exercises of the school. 

The teacher’s work of instruction will 
not partake of the nature of a pouring 
process in his effort to impart knowledge 
to the pupil, but rather will the teacher 
so guide the pupil’s intellectual activities, 
emotional responses, and resulting im- 
_ pulses to action as to lead him to discover 
and appropriate for himself the ethical 
principles and moral values contained in 
the subject matter. The resultant prod- 
uct of such instruction must be both the 
development and expansion of the pupil’s 
personality and his fuller socialization 
through a sympathetic participation in 
those activities of social service for 
which the Church stands and which con- 
tribute to community welfare and better- 
ment, 

On its subjective side the achievement 
of this aim requires that the pupils par- 
ticipate in the service of worship and that 
this service be planned with a view to such 
participation. The period of instruction 
in turn must provide the pupils with an 
opportunity to formulate in their own 
. words their intellectual responses, through 
recitation, discussion, writing, and 
“home” work. The lines of social serv- 


326 


Curriculum 


ice suggested and supervised by the Sun- 
day school should furnish the opportunity 
for the practical application of the prin- 
ciples and ideals of Christian altruism 
set forth in the instruction given, and 
at the same time bring that instruction 
to its normal consummation in efficient 


churchmanship and Christian citizenship. | 


(See Activity and its Place in Religious 
Educaton; Social Aspects of Religious 
. . . Education.) | 

The social-service activities of the Sun- 
day school, to be of greatest value in the 
character development of the pupil, like 
the subject matter and method of instruc- 
tion, should be well organized and graded, 
so as to express the interests, sympathies, 


and impulses to service natural to the 


pupil at each successive stage in the proc- 
ess of his normal religious development. 
(See Social Service and the S. 8.) 
Correlation and Concentration. In the 
light of the preceding discussion the neces- 
sity for a careful correlation of worship, 
instruction, and expressional activities in 
the Sunday-school program is apparent. 
Frequently the opening services of wor- 
ship will afford the best opportunity for 
stimulating interest in those benevolences 


which offer to the school its largest oppor- 


tunity for social service. This is espe- 
cially true of those seasonal forms of social 
service which are inspired by the Christ- 
mas spirit of charity, the Easter mission- 
ary service, the Rally Day, Thanksgiving, 
and other festivals of the school. In a 
similar way the class and departmental 
organization of the school should provide 
for a close correlation of the Sunday- 
school activities with the instruction. 
Again, the spirit and attitude of worship 
must not be abandoned in the lesson pe- 
riod, which, while permitting of freer 
forms of expression, nevertheless should 
be characterized by earnestness and devo- 
tion to the task in hand. On the whole 
the worship, instruction, and expressional 
activities should be so organized and inter- 
related as to leave with the pupil the im- 
pression of a unified purpose and objec- 
tive in the entire program of the school. 


seg 


The service of worship, the lesson study, 


and the organized social-service activities 
are the concentration points or centers of 
the curriculum, each having its special 
emphasis yet each incomplete without the 
others. 


ee 


ae 


The method of their correlation 











Curriculum 


will depend in a measure upon the gen- 


eral plan of organization and administra- 


tion, which is largely a local problem. It 
will depend in a measure also on the ac- 
tual subject matter of instruction and its 
arrangement, and in part, finally, upon 
the local environment and social constit- 
uency of the school. 

A Local Responsibility. Responsibility 
for the curriculum in the sense in which 
this term has been used in this article 
rests’ primarily with the local Sunday 
school. ‘The time is coming when there 
will be available a variety of subject 
matter of instruction which is for the 
most part graded and therefore adaptable 
for use in a scientifically graded cur- 
riculum. The number of good Sunday- 
school hymn books is increasing and some 
of these offer important suggestions for 
the right grading and conduct of worship. 
The stated benevolences of all denomina- 
tions, together with charitable organiza- 
tions of the local community, and the par- 
ish, cases of poverty and distress offer a 
wide field for social-service activities, but 
the selection of materials and study 
courses and the building of the Sunday- 
school programs in such a way that wor- 
ship, instruction, and service shall each 
receive its proper emphasis in relation to 
the others rests with those who are re- 
sponsible for the organization and super- 
vision of the local school. 

The value of a general or uniform cur- 
Ticulum, service of worship, course of 
instruction, or program of service pre- 
pared for an entire denomination, group 


_ of denominations, or for the general public 
lies largely in its suggestiveness. and in 





its adaptability. It is not intended to 
relieve the local school of its responsibil- 
ity nor to rob it of the opportunity and 
privilege of constructing its own cur- 


327 


Curwen 


riculum to meet its own peculiar situa- 
tion and needs. The guiding principles 
for the building of a curriculum or pro- 
gram for the local Sunday school must be 
sought in the developing life and conse- 
quent changing needs of the pupils and 
in the peculiar social, intellectual, and 
religious environment of the local parish. 
H. H. Meyer. 
(See Bible Study Union Lessons; Con- 
structive Bible Studies; Departmental 
Graded Lessons; Graded Lessons, British ; 
Graded Lessons, International, History of 
the; Lesson Committee, International; 
Lutheran Graded System; Pedagogy.) 
References: 

Ayre, G. B. Suggestions for a Syl- 
labus in Religious Teaching, (Lon- 
don, 1911.) 

Hutchins, W. N. Graded Socral 
Service for the Sunday School. (Chi- 
cago, 1914.) 

Lehman, E. H. Curriculum for Jew- 
ish Religious Schools. (New York, 
1910.) 

Pease, G. W. An Outline of a Bible- 
School Curriculum. (Chicago, 1906- 
c04.) 

Religious Education. Vol. 4, p. 430; ~ 
Vol. 5, p. 487; Vol. 9, p. 199. 

Religious Education Association. 
The Material of Religious Hducation, 
p. 129. (Chicago, 1907.) 

Religious Education Association. 
Proceedings, 1903. “The Curriculum 
of Study in the Sunday School,” by 
Shailer Mathews, p. 186. 

Religious Education Association. 
Proceedings, 1904. “The Principles 
Underlying a Graded Curriculum,” by 
BE. P. St. John, p. 243. 


CURWEN, JOHN.—SerxE Music IN THE 
S. S. (EN@LAND). 


D 


DAILY BIBLE READING.—SEEz BIBLE 
Reaping ASssocrATION, INTERNATIONAL; 
HomE Datty BIBLE READINGS. 


DAILY VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL 
ASSOCIATION.—Social Needs. For over 
two months in summer public and private 
school oversight is withdrawn from over 
18,000,000 boys and girls of whom about 
3, 000, 000 are enrolled in the elementary 
schools of 50 cities that exceed each 100,- 
000 in population. About one half of 
these city school children spend the 
summer on the streets, exposed to demoral- 
izing influences and beyond the reach of 
organized philanthropy. Every church 
should be a community center for child 
welfare. 

Moral Needs. Religious training is not 
practicable in the public schools of Amer- 
ica, so that on the church rests the duty of 
providing for it. It has enrolled about 
15,000,000 children of school age in Sun- 
day schools for whom are provided 52 half 
hours of religious instruction. (See Reli- 
gious Day School.) There are 10,000,000 
more children of school age not enrolled 
in any Sunday school. The sense of moral 
obligation is not cultivated and, therefore, 
respect for social and property rights is 
defective in the present generation. 

The Daily Vacation Bible School Asso- 
ciation has been organized to meet both 
the social and moral needs of children. It 
is free to give religious instruction in its 
vacation schools and so to emphasize the 
deepest sanctions of morality. 

Its method is to bring together in a 
common ministry (1) idle children of the 


streets, (2) idle buildings of the 
churches, (3) idle students of the col- 
leges, 


Its Functions are: (a) To promote the 
community use of church buildings in 
cities and rural districts for the child wel- 
fare on broad nonsectarian lines, espe- 
cially when public schools are closed in 
summer. The Daily Vacation Bible 


School Association is the only national 
organization which has this for its mis- 
sion. Church buildings represent a vast 
investment of wealth and they should be 
used for community welfare. 

(b) To promote the social welfare of 
children irrespective of race or creed by 
giving them competent leaders and teach- 
ers, suitable and happy occupations, sym- 
pathetic oversight of games, good songs, 
and above all to combine with this pro- 
gram religious training, which is the su- 
preme need of childhood. 

(c) To employ in this field of service 
college men and women who are filled 
with the vision of Christlike social serv- 
ice and who are fitted to be efficient 
leaders of children in worship, work, and 
play. It is an educational and economic 
benefit to enable these educated young 
men and women to utilize their vacation 
months for social service. 

History of the Movement. The Daily 
Vacation Bible School movement was in- 
augurated in New York in 1901 by Robert 
G. Boville, whose attention was drawn to 
the need of bringing together idle chil- 
dren, idle churches, and idle students for 
community welfare on the East Side, New 
York city. As an experiment five church 
buildings of one communion were opened 
for Daily Vacation Bible Schools in which 
manual work, organized play, and Bible 
study went hand in hand. These schools 


- were so successful from the start that they 


were repeated and multiplied in following 
years and in 1905-06 were introduced 
into churches of seven communions in 
which they are still conducted. 

National Organization. In 1907 the 
call from other cities for the introduction 
of these schools made it apparent that the 
time had come for the creation of a na- 
tional organization that should have for 
its sole mission the deepening and exten- 
sion of the movement. Hence the Na- 
tional Vacation Bible School Committee 
came into existence, having for its first 


328 





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Daily Vacation Bible School 


presiding officers, Mr. John Seeley Ward, 
1907-8; the Rev. Leighton Parks, D.D., 
1909-10; and Mr. Robert E. Speer, 1911- 
14. In 1911 it was incorporated as the 
Daily Vacation Bible School Association. 
The headquarters of the Association are at 
90 Bible House, New York city. 


GROWTH 
YEAR SCHOOLS CHILDREN TEACHERS CIPFIES 
1907 19 5,083 70 4 
1914 297 64,535 1,940 67 


CoMPARATIVE NATIONAL Cost PER CHILD 


ENROLL- EXPEN- COST PER 

oO MENT DITURES CHILD 
1911 102 26,886 $26,578.99 98 cents 
1914 297 64,535 54,668.10 85 cents 


The Relation to the Sunday School. In 
many cases a Daily Vacation Bible School 
has been sustained by a single church for 
the benefit of all the children accessible to 
that church. Not infrequently, one or all 
of the employed teachers have been col- 
lege men and women connected with the 
ehurch and Sunday school. A consider- 
able number of the Sunday-school pupils 
who remain in the city during the summer 
have become members of the Vacation 
Bible School and have had as many Bible 
lessons in the six weeks as they have in 
the regular Sunday school in six months. 

The Daily Vacation Bible School has 
‘been an ideal object for the contributions 
of the Sunday school, since the children 
are strongly appealed to by the needs of 
those of their own age in the immediate 
vicinity. It will thus be seen that the 
Daily Vacation Bible School affords a 
natural and easy avenue for community 
and social service to any Sunday school 
that is willing to take a forward step in 
that direction. 

The pedagogical usefulness of the Va- 
cation Bible School is no less clear. It 
demonstrates to the Sunday school the 
possibilities of making morals and reli- 
gion attractive, it exalts the Bible story 
both as a vehicle for successful Bible 
teaching and as a means of making that 
teaching unobjectionable to all sects. It 
has also shown how successful education 
through the hand may be and has been 
suggestive as to the possibility of a large 
degree of self-government even in chil- 
dren under fifteen. 

R. G. Bovi1e. 


329 


Dana 


References: 

College Mimstry (periodical). (New 
York.) 

Unused Possibilities: two Suggestions 
for Religious Education. (Boston.) 


DAME SCHOOLS IN SCOTLAND.—In 
the eighteenth century, when education in 
Scotland had sunk to a very low ebb, 
many people engaged in teaching who 
were quite unfit to do so; old men, help- 
less cripples, failures in other directions, 
endeavored to earn a living by taking 
in a few pupils, either to their own homes 
or to any poor building where accom- 
modation could be found. Among these 
were many women who made a small pit- 
tance by teaching reading and possibly 
writing; but many could only read and 
the Bible was the usual textbook. This 
was natural, as most Scottish homes pos- 
sessed Bibles and the people were so poor 
that other books could not be obtained. 
There was not much grading of the 
classes, but in some of them turn about 
was given to the various ages—each class 
reading in a separate portion of the 
Scriptures, the classes being named after 
the part of the Bible in which they were 
reading. Thus the Isaiahs would be dis- 
missed while the Proverbs were called in. 

These adventure schools were looked 
upon with suspicion by the local authori-° 
ties, who levied a tax for the support of 
the grammar school and fines and im- 
prisonment were inflicted on those who 
refused to desist when warned to do so. 

Towards the end of the century a less 
exclusive policy began to prevail and pri- 
vate schools were more encouraged, the 
authorities finding that it saved them 
the expense of providing additional schools 
at their own cost. 

JAMES CUNNINGHAM. 


DANA, DANIEL (1771-1859).—Pres- 
byterian clergyman and fourth president 
of Dartmouth College. Born in Ipswich, 
Mass., in 1771. After graduating from 
Dartmouth in 1788, he remained there 
for some years.as tutor. In 1794 he was 
ordained pastor of the First Presbyterian 
Church at Newburyport, Mass., and served 
this church for twenty-six years; he was 
then elected president of Dartmouth Col- 
lege, but remained in this position only a 
brief term. For four and a half years 


Daughaday 


he was pastor of the Second Presbyterian 
Church at Londonbury, N. H. In 1826 
he returned to Newburyport as pastor of 
the Second Presbyterian Church where he 
labored until his resignation in 1845. 

Mr. Dana delivered “An Address at a 
public meeting of the Sabbath Schools 
under the patronage of Newburyport Sab- 
bath School and Tract Society” August 
16, 1818, which was published at New- 
buryport, the same year. In this pamphlet 
he discusses at some length the objection 
raised that “Such instruction tends unduly 
to bias and to preoccupy the youthful 
mind; whereas in religion, the mind 
should be left wholly unbiased and unoc- 
cupied, until in the full vigor and matur- 
ity of its powers, it can deliberately form 
its own opinion.” His principal points 
are: First, it is wrong to store the young 
mind with party dogmas; second, truth 
should be kept sacred; third, the Bible 
is a universal guide for mankind; fourth, 
many children die in early childhood; 
fifth, it is impossible that the human 
mind remain unbiased; sixth, it is the 
direct command of God to instruct the 
children. 

The advantages of such institutions and 
instructions are, intellectual development ; 
restraint of depravity; a frequent means 
of conversion; many children who would 
be otherwise entirely neglected receive 
instruction ; emulation arises where many 
children assemble; the better observance 
of the Sabbath Day is one of the results; 
this field affords a place “For the zeal and 
exertions of the softer sex.” The address 
closed with a word of advice for teachers 
and children. Appended to this address 
is a report of “The Trustees of the New- 
buryport Sabbath School and Tract So- 
ciety.” This report mentions that two 
girls at fourteen years of age, had each 
committed 1,559 verses of the Bible; and 
a girl thirteen years of age had committed 


1,575 verses. 3 @. Ayres 


DAUGHADAY, GEORGE (d. 1807).— 
An early Methodist pioneer preacher in 
the South, and a native of South Carolina. 
Dr. John McClintock states that “In 1787, 
George Daughaday, a Methodist preacher 
in Charleston, S. C., was drenched with 
water pumped from a public cistern ‘for 
the crime of conducting a Sunday school 
for the benefit of the African children of 


330 


‘ 


Deaconess Institutions 


that vicinity.”” (Taken from the Meth- 
odist Quarterly Review of 1859.) He 
died in Wilmington, N. C., March 23, 
1807, and was buried in the African 
Church there. 3 G Ayaen 


DAY OF UNIVERSAL PRAYER FOR 
SUNDAY SCHOOLS.—SeExz Decision Day. 


DEACONESS INSTITUTIONS OFFER- 
ING TRAINING FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL 
WORK (ENGLAND) .—I. Church of Eng- 
land. 1. Mildmay Training Home 
prepares for home and foreign missionary 
work, chiefly the latter. “Methods of 
teaching for Day and Sunday School 
Teaching” are included in the curriculum. 
In addition to lectures, criticism lessons 
are given by the students. The course is 
divided into three sections: | 
I. Infants. II. Middle school. IIL 

Adolescents. 

2. Church Sisters’ Home only has ae- 
commodation for five students. A course 
is taken on “Modern Methods of Sunday 
School Teaching.” Sisters in parishes 
take Preparation classes for teachers. 

3. Deaconess Home, Mildmay Park, N., 
has a two years’ course of training. Lee- 
tures are given on Sunday-school teach- 
ing on kindergarten principles by the 
Rev. Somerset, Warden of the Church 
Institute, London. Two Sunday schools 
for infants are managed by the students, 
at St. Philip’s and St. David’s, Islington, 
with classes also for older girls. 

4. Hxeter Diocesan Deaconess Home 
provides two years’ training, including 
training in Sunday-school work and work 
among young people. Sometimes if a 
deaconess shows special adaptability, or 
there is special need, she is set apart for 
such work. 

5. Rochester and Southwark Diocesan 
Deaconess Institution gives two years 
training, including a course of lectures 
on “Methods of Teaching,” with demon:| 
stration and practice lessons, by the Rev. 
Hume Campbell, of St. Christopher’ s Col. 
lege. 

6. Winchester Diocesan Deaconess 
Home, Portsmouth. | 

7. Newcastle Diocesan Deaconess Home 

8. St. Denys College, Warminster. Foi 
sisters of the Community of St. Denys 
Training is provided for foreign mission: 
ary work, but occasionally a sister taker 








Deaconess Institutions 


up parish work if, for special reasons, 
unable to go abroad. ‘There is a two 
years’ course of training, including lec- 
tures on “Theory of Education,” and the 
sisters help in the Sunday school at War- 
minster. 

II. Free Church. 1. Baptist Deacon- 
esses’ Home has forty workers, some in 
the Home, some out. All are engaged in 
Sunday-school work. 

2. Free Methodist. 
Clapham, S. W. 

3. Primitive Methodist. 
Hall, Old Kent Rd., S. E. 

4, United Methodist Church. Deacon- 
esses’ Institute, 25 Bolingbroke Grove, 
Wandsworth Common; 8. W., has in resi- 
dence forty sisters. Two-thirds are trained 
in Sunday-school work, the other one- 
third consists of those who do evangelistic 
work. 

5. ‘Wesleyan Methodist. Wesley Dea- 
coness College, Ilkley, provides accommo- 
dation for about twenty-four students 
who take a twelve months’ course of study, 
which includes elementary psychology, 
with special reference to child nature, and 
Sunday-school teacher training. 

III. Scotch. 1. Church of Scotland. 
Institute of Missionary ‘Training for 
Deaconesses and Foreign Missionaries 
gives a short course on “Methods of 
Teaching” ; another on “Missionary Meth- 
ods in the Home Field” (including the 
Sunday school, the Bible class and the 
girls’ club) ; and another on “Instruction 
in Preparation for Lessons for Sunday 
School and Bible Classes.” 

2. United Free Church of Scotland. 
Women’s Missionary College, Edinburgh, 
provides training for missionaries, both 
home and foreign. Lectures are given 
by a trained kindergartner on elementary 
psychology, child nature, theory and prac- 
tice of education, educational handwork, 
and blackboard drawing. 

The practical training ineltiies work 
in training class for teachers, work in a 
Primary Department of a graded Sunday 
school, and the visiting of schools. 

IV. Undenominational. 1. The Buble- 
women and Nurses’ Mission, aided by 
grants from the British and Foreign 
Bible Society, and the Metropolitan Hos- 
pital Sunday and Saturday Funds, gives 
six months’ training, during which there 
is a week’s course of lectures by Miss Hetty 


Bowron House, 


St. George’s 


d31 


Debating 


Lee, of St. Christopher’s College, on Sun- 
day-school teaching. Of the one hun- 
dred and four mission workers, all teach 
in the Sunday school. 

2. ¥. W. C. A. Missionary Testing and 
Training Home, Chelsea. The two years’ 
course of study includes lectures on “The 
Principles and Art of Teaching,’ and 
practice in Sunday-school teaching. There 
are about twenty students in training, of 
whom about an equal number enter foreign 
and home missionary work. 

3. Deaconess Institution, 116 Grosvenor 
Road, Highbury New Park, N. (See Reli- 
gious Training Schools.) 

WILLIAM BRADFIELD. 


DEACONESSES.—Srtr RELIGIOUS 
TRAINING SCHOOLS. 


DEBATING AS A METHOD OF IN- 
STRUCTION.—When a boy and girl reach 
the age of sixteen or seventeen years, their 
reasoning faculties become very active. 
As children they were interested in the 
why and the how of things, but as young 
people they are more than superficial 
questioners. They are beginning to think 
deeply, purposefully on the great realities 
of the new life into which they are grow- 
ing. They are trying to find their place 
in the world, trying to readjust themselves 
to the new relations which maturing life 
is bringing with it. There are new forces 
at work within them, new powers of body 
and mind seeking for expression. To help 
them in the solution of all these problems 
God has given them their reason, a power 
which seems to come into its rights at this 
age. It is one of the most marked charac- 
teristics of the attainment of later adoles- 
cence, and it offers the Sunday-school 
teacher a natural means of approach in 
presenting the truth. Used rightly, it is 
his best ally; ignored or offended, the 
pupil’s reason is the teacher’s stumbling- 
block. (See Adolescence and its Signifi- 
cance. ) 

It is one of the axioms of modern ped- 
agogy that one should utilize the natural 
interests of the pupil. Therefore, if young 
people love to reason and argue, the wise 
teacher will make use of this character- 
istic in his teaching. Instead of giving 
his class a mass of information, he should 
try to get from them an expression of 
their opinions. His object should be to 


Debating 


stimulate the pupil’s reason, to arouse dis- 
cussion, and thus lead him to a clear-cut 
conception of truth that is his own because 
he has thought it out himself. This is 
the discussion method of teaching, the 
most effective with young people from six- 
teen years of age and upwards. 

An occasional debate in a class in con- 
nection with the lesson offers variety in 
the use of this method. The teacher may 
select a subject which is related to the 
next lesson and express it in the form of a 
resolution, as “Resolved: That the char- 
acter of David was greater than that of 
Saul.” To three members of the class he 
may assign the affirmative, to three others 
the negative side of the question. Hach 
group chooses its leader who opens the 
debate and also speaks in rebuttal at the 
close. Three minutes are allowed to each 
speaker. The teacher should preside at 
the debate, acting as time-keeper and 
judge. After the debate the question is 
thrown open to the class for general dis- 
cussion from the floor. The question. of 
which side won the debate should not be 
raised, but it is a good plan to allow the 
class to vote on the merits of the question. 
In this way they record their own convic- 
tions on the subject, and the teacher also 
has an opportunity to declare his position. 

Used occasionally, and given a dignified 
place in the lesson hour, debates on points 
in the preceding or following lesson are 
very effective as a method of instruction. 
The debaters find it necessary to study 
the lesson and all that bears upon it. The 
Bible has a new meaning for them, for 
they study it with a definite purpose in 
which they are interested. A wider par- 
ticipation in the class hour is another 
result of this method of instruction. By 
assigning one of the diffident ones on each 
side of the question the teacher stimulates 
them to do their part in the debate. This 
means greater interest on their part, more 
ready expression of their opinions, and 
thus a larger circle in the class who par- 
ticipate in the lesson teaching. One of 
the indirect results is a more constant at- 
tendance and an increasing membership, 
due to the fact that the members of the 
class are having the opportunity to use 
their reason and express their views in 
open discussion. The teacher is no longer 
a lecturer, but is in reality a leader and 


teacher. S. A. WESTON. 


332 


Decentralized S. S. 


DECENTRALIZED SUNDAY SCHOOL, 
THE.—The day for mass work with chil- 
dren has gone; the time for decentraliza- 
tion and specialization has come. In the 
day school the classes are graded; the 
demands of child nature will compel the 
Sunday-school teacher to follow. The 
Sunday school of the future must be de- 
centralized for three reasons: 

1, The child demands it. The child 
must be taught largely through his senses 
and his activities. The little child learns 
through his muscles as well as through 
his ears or his eyes. The adult may he 
approached through his intellect; the 
boy or girl may be inspired through the 
ideals presented to them; but the child 
is very largely influenced by his surround- 
ings; what he sees, feels, and handles 
influences his life most. There is a wide 
open door through his imagination, but 
the culture of his emotional feelings is 
the chief thing to be considered. 


The nature of the child is changing so 


rapidly that grading in children’s work 
must be sharp and clearly defined. There 
is as much difference between a four and 
a six year old as between persons twenty 
and thirty years old. The younger the 
child, the more rapid is the change in his 
developing nature, therefore, the younger 
the child, the more individual must be the 
care given him, All through childhood 
the rapidly unfolding life demands decen- 
tralization and specialization. 


2. There must be physical nearness 


if there 1s to be mental nearness. 
little child is easily lost in space, or 


The 


in the crowd. The preacher or lecturer 


may hold the interest of a thousand, but | 
with a thousand children it is impossible. 
A story told in a whisper adds mystery 
and appeals to the wonder of a little child 
in such a way as an address given in a 
loud tone of voice cannot do. 


This law, | 


that physical nearness is essential to men- | 
tal nearness, has been sufficiently demon- | 


strated to permit the assumption that in | 
general practice, no department of any | 
of the children’s grades of a Sunday school — 
should have more than seventy-five to one | 
hundred children in it. 

3. The child learns by indirection. 
In children’s work “atmosphere” can never 
be secured in large companies. One| 
hundred and fifty children in a Primary | 
Department are too many. Divide them 





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as they need better teachers. 


Decentralized S. S. 


into two departments of seventy-five each, 


or even fewer, and that powerful ally— 


“atmosphere”—will, by the power of in- 
direction, help the teacher more in her 
work with the children than any other 
single influence. It is what a child absorbs 
rather than what he learns, it is what is 
caught rather than what is taught, that 
produces deepest impressions. The first 
great aim of the Sunday-school leader 
must be to create an “atmosphere”; for 
this, decentralization is imperative. 

The idea that the whole Sunday school 
must necessarily meet at the same hour 
has led to a vast waste of premises. De- 
centralization permits the school to make 
use of the premises at different times of 
the day. The introduction of this prin- 
ciple has doubled the capacity of many 
schools. 

The collective opening and closing ex- 
ercises in the average Sunday school are 
unnecessary and a source of weakness. 
Each department should be complete with- 
in itself. Decentralization does more for 
the promotion of good order, attention, 
and reverence, than any other new prin- 
ciple that has been introduced into modern 
Sunday-school work. Children must never 
be brought into an atmosphere of irrever- 
ence and disorder, for the little child is 
“wax to receive and granite to retain”; 
he absorbs the spirit of reverence or ir- 
reverence in every breath he breathes. 
Decentralization protects the child from 
these things. As a matter of fact, chil- 
dren need better guardians quite as much 
Prevention 
is better than cure. Decentralization 
means prevention. 

Many think that the first principle of 
the Sunday school is unity, but there may 
be unity in diversity. It is not necessary 


_ that the little child be acquainted with 
_ the older pupil. Unity of aim and method 
_ on the part of the leaders and teaching fac- 


 ulty is essential. 
of management. 


There should be unity 

One superintendent 
should have charge of the whole school, 
but he controls and manages the school 
through the heads of departments. The 
superintendent is the executive officer 


_ who puts his plans into operation through 
_ the leaders of the grades. These, with the 


_ mony one with the other. 


superintendent, must ever work in har- 
The Sunday 


school has suffered and the child has been 


333 


| Decision Day 


sacrificed from a mistaken idea as to what 
constitutes unity. What may be good for 
adults may not be beneficial for the chil- 
dren. 

G. HAMILTON ARCHIBALD. 


DECISION DAY.—Children’s or Young 
People’s Day. Day for Unwersal Prayer 
for Sunday Schools. In most of the Free 
Churches of Great Britain the third Sun- 
day in October is recognized as “Deci- 
sion Day,” though by some it is known 
as “Children’s Day,” and by others as the 
“Day of Universal Prayer for Sunday 
Sehools.” The method of observing this 
day varies greatly. There are those who 
object to any direct appeal being made to 
the pupils to acknowledge Christ as their 
Lord and Master and to pledge themselves 
to his service. In the schools where this 
objection holds the day is either ignored, 
or it is observed by means of a special 
prayer meeting for teachers and others 
who may wish to take part. 

In the majority of instances the day is 
regarded as a harvest that should follow 
the sowing and culture of the year. On 
the previous Sunday it is customary to 
hand a letter to all the pupils above a 
given age. This letter may either be a 
special one written by the teacher to each 
individual in the class; it may be a gen- 
eral letter addressed either by the super-, 
intendent or the pastor of the church to 
all the pupils of the school; or it may be 
a letter published annually by denomina- 
tional houses and addressed to the young 
people of the church. 

During the week preceding Decision 
Day prayer-meetings are held and the 
teachers seek opportunity to get in touch 
with the individual pupil, the week closing 
in many Sunday schools with a teachers’ 
communion service. 

The public services of the day have 
reference to child religion, to decision, or 
to joining the church, and the afternoon 
session of the school assumes a specific 
character. The hymns are carefully 
chosen, arrangements made for men and 
women specially gifted to lead in prayer, 
and an address that is largely an appeal 
for decision or re-dedication is given, and 
then the pupils may either be asked to 
signify their resolution to live a Christian 
life, or they may retire to their class- 
rooms in order to give the teacher an op- 


Democracy in the §. S. 


portunity for more direct personal influ- 
ence. 

Promise-cards are largely distributed, 
but in most instances the pupils are asked 
to take them home and think and pray 
about decision for Christ before signing 
and to return them on the following Sun- 
day. Often the pastor announces that he 
will be in his vestry at a given hour on 
certain evenings to meet any of the young 
people who may desire church member- 
ship. In some schools the Roll of Dis- 
cipleship is opened and those who feel free 
to sign come forward and write their 
names in the book, the rest of the school 
preserving silence or softly singing suit- 
able hymns. 

It will thus be seen that methods vary, 
the aim being to perfect good resolutions 
and impulses that have been working in 
the pupil’s mind during the preceding 
months, by an act of definite decision for 
Christ. 

Much of the real value of this day, both 
for the pupils and for the church, depends 
upon the wisdom and understanding of 
those who have the conduct of its services. 
All approach to excitement, to the undue 
play of the emotional, or to the unreflec- 
tive “follow-my-leader” tendency of child- 
hood should be restrained. A careful, 
thoughtful, tender, pointed appeal is most 
helpful. Every student of child psychol- 
ogy knows that there is a period—in early 
adolescence—when the mind is partic- 
ularly sensitive to a strong spiritual ap- 
peal; when high ideals are cherished; 
when secret thoughts and desires after the 
life beautiful are nursed. (See Adoles- 
cence and its Significance.) ‘This is the 
reaper’s opportunity, for this is the period 
when response is easy and natural. De- 
spite all that may be said as to the pos- 
sible perils of Children’s Day (or Deci- 
sion Day), it is an institution so valuable 
that it may not be ignored nor slighted. 
(See Children’s Day.) 

J. W. BUTCHER. 


DEMOCRACY IN THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL.—A comparatively recent but 
growing tendency among Protestant Sun- 
day schools is manifest in organizations of 
pupils which encourage the self-reliance, 
progress, and enterprise commonly asso- 
ciated with democratic self-government. 
This is the voluntary formation of so- 


334 


Democracy in the S. §. 


cieties or classes by the pupils themselves, 
under the supervision of the authorities 
of the school, for purposes of instruction, 
mutual helpfulness, and amusement. 
These societies are composed of boys and 
girls between the ages of about fifteen or 
sixteen and twenty. The pupils of each 


‘grade or year within those age limits have 


meetings and elect a president, vice-presi- 
dent, secretary, and treasurer. They 
frame a set of rules, which may be orally 
announced or written, and they proceed 
to organize themselves according to those 
rules. They also elect a leader, generally 
a teacher in that grade or year, who acts as 
overseer and adviser with the knowledge 
of the school authorities, and who gener- 
ally submits his advice to them in the 
form of a resolution on which they vote. 
He is not strictly an officer of the society, 
but rather a link between it and the au- 
thorities of the school. 

Debates are arranged on Biblical and 
secular topics, and concerts, teas, and out- 
door walks are given, all with the knowl- 
edge and codperation of the leader, and 


~ 


in many cases with that of the pastor or 


superintendent. The finances are care- 
fully regulated. Dues are collected from 


the members by the treasurer, who is held — 


accountable for receipts and disburse- 
ments, All the officers are responsible to 
the members for their conduct of the so- 
ciety’s affairs. Public debates and dis- 


cussions of class matters accustom the 


members to habits of accuracy and to form 
reasonable opinions, as the latter must be 
tested in the practical working of the class 
or society. Also the advice and oversight 
of the leader, or of the pastor or superin- 
tendent on special occasions, is a salu- 
tary check on opinions, conduct, and man- 
ners that might not accord with the reli- 
gious and educational aim of the school. 
These classes or societies have developed 
a spirit which has a good effect upon the 
Sunday school. The class spirit, stirred 
to make as good a showing as possible, 
fosters a rivalry which spurs on other 
classes, so that each grade or year in which 
a class is formed has its own contribution 
to the general excellence and reputation 
of the school. In some schools the class 


of the graduating year is specially con- — 


cerned to make an excellent record. St. 
George’s Protestant Episcopal Sunday 


school, New York city, was one of the first, 


“ea 
ak 


Demonstration S. S. 


if not the first, to carry out this experi- 
ment successfully. Other schools have 
found it equally beneficial. In the Bush- 
wick Avenue Methodist Episcopal Sun- 
day school, Brooklyn, N. Y., which has 
five well graded and well organized de- 
partments, this class spirit takes the form 
of enthusiastic work in each department 
above the younger grades. Each has its 
debates, committees, meetings, and local 
activities in which the young people often 
act on their own initiative, though com- 
petent advice and oversight are always at 
hand. 

It has been noted that this form of Sun- 
day-school development progresses most 
naturally and rapidly where there are ap- 
propriate housing facilities, where the de- 
partments have separate rooms and a com- 
plete organization. It has also been noted 
that such organizations are to a certain ex- 
tent training schools for the later exercise 


of good citizenship. J. W. Russet. 


DEMONSTRATION SUNDAY SCHOOL. 
—SrEE Nationat SOCIETY FOR THE PRo- 
MOTION OF THE EDUCATION OF THE POOR; 
St. CHRISTOPHER’S COLLEGE; TRAINING 
INSTITUTE FoR 8S. S. WoRKERS, WESTHILL, 
SELLY OAK. 


DENMARK, RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
IN.—The Public School. In the Middle 
Ages the connection between the church 
and the school was very intimate. The 
teacher was a clerical man and he was 
in the service of the church. These con- 
ditions were continued after the Protes- 
tant Reformation in the sixteenth century. 
The chief discipline in the schools was 
religion. The clergy had the supervision 
of everything belonging to the school, and 
the teachers were obliged to belong to the 
established church, the Lutheran. When 
the public-school system was organized 
in 1739, it was provided that the teachers 
all had to adhere to the Confessio Augus- 
tana. The school books were all of a reli- 
gious character, and the boys were obliged 
to accompany the school teacher to church 
every Sunday. The schools were sup- 
ported by collections taken in_ the 
churches. 

When later it was made a duty for all 
children to go to school, it became neces- 
sary to change the rules in some degree, 
as the school was then obliged to open its 


335 


Denmark 


doors to Jews as well as to dissenters; 
but the rule still obtained that the school 
teachers were obliged, with a few excep- 
tions, to belong to the established church. 
Religious instruction is considered a chief 
discipline in country schools and in teach- 
ers’ seminaries. The supervision of the 
public education is generally in the hands 
of the clergy. 

Children whose parents belong to the 
dissenters may be excused from participa- 
tion in the religious instruction in the 
schools, provided the parents themselves 
undertake the moral and religious instruc- 
tion of their children. 

Confirmation. All children whose parents 
belong to the Lutheran Church, are ex- 
pected to present themselves as candidates 
for confirmation, which, as a rule, takes 
place at the age of fourteen or fifteen 
years. Before this time the children have 
a preparatory course of study with the 
pastor, with whom they generally meet 
twice a week for three to six months. The 
material of study consists of the Bible, 
Luther’s Catechism, and some hymns 
from the hymn-book. On the day of con- 
firmation the children are asked a few 
questions and then they affirm their belief 
in the baptismal covenant. 

Several other churches, especially the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, have under- 
taken religious instruction with the pas- 
tor, requiring an examination, but not 
confirmation. Now also Lutheran min- 
isters are permitted to drop the require- 
ment of the confirmation vow. 

Sunday Schools. In the year 1835 the 
first attempt was made to introduce the 
English Sunday-school system in Den- 
mark. If the experiment had been made 
earlier, it had not succeeded and everyone 
had forgotten about it. But in the year 
mentioned a Sunday school was opened 
in a village north of Copenhagen. This 
was done through the influence of an Hng- 
lishman by the name of Brown, a gentle- 
man belonging to the British embassy, 
but when Mr. Brown was removed a few 
years later, the Sunday school ceased its 
work. In 1845 a Lutheran pastor organ- 
ized a Sunday school. The Baptists did 
the same in 1846, but none of these 
schools continued. 

The oldest Sunday school still existing 
was organized in 1860, in the building 
belonging to the Methodist Episcopal 


Denmark 


Church in Copenhagen. It was com- 
menced by Rev. C. Willerup, who was at 
that time superintendent- of the Scandi- 
navian work of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. This Sunday school now belongs 
to the Central Mission in the Jerusalem 
Church. 

A young man, Axel W. Jacobsen, prin- 
cipal of a school, became interested in 
Sunday-school work, and in order to study 
the American system, he became for some 
time a teacher in the Methodist Sunday 
school in Copenhagen. After this, in 
1869, he created an organization which 
soon grew to be of no small importance. 
Through the inspiration of the Method- 
ists and of Mr. Jacobsen Sunday schools 
now sprang up everywhere. 

The chief Sunday-school organizations 
at present are those belonging to the 
“Church-Union for Inner Mission,” in 
Copenhagen and in the country. The 
first named Union has a Sunday School 
Committee, the president of which has for 
many years been Mr. P. D. Koch, Dr. 
Md., of Copenhagen. The second or- 
ganization, which is rather suspicious of 
“American ideas,” generally uses the 
name of “children’s services” instead of 
Sunday school. These organizations pre- 
pare a lesson system of their own. 

The Baptist Church was among the 
first to introduce Sunday-school work in 
Denmark. This church has shown active 
interest in the introduction of modern 
aids; they have had Sunday-school mis- 
sionaries, courses, ete. It has connected 
with it a large number of small Sunday 
schools in country places. So far as pos- 
sible the Methodist Episcopal Church has 
tried to follow the movements in England 
and America. Its schools are connected 
with the American Sunday School Union; 
they give their contribution to this organi- 
zation and receive from it a small support. 

In 1901, a Sunday School Union was 
organized comprising the Sunday schools 
under the care of Baptists, Methodists, 
and “The Free Mission.” This Union 
has been in correspondence with the Brit- 
ish Sunday School Union. This organi- 
zation has sent out Sunday-school mis- 
sionaries and has organized some courses 
of study for teachers. It is much ham- 
pered because of its meager financial re- 
sources. 

The London Sunday School Union is 


336 


also in friendly correspondence with the 
Lutheran society. 

At intervals of five years representatives 
of Sunday-school work in the northern 
lands meet in one of the countries, 
Sweden, Norway or Denmark, for a con- 
gress. This congress has numbered more 
than 2,000 delegates belonging to differ- 
ent churches, though, of course, the Lu- 
theran Church has the majority. 


Sunday 
Schools Pupils Teachers 


878 64,896 4,079 


Statistics for Sunday School 
Work in Denmark 


Established Church.... 
Methodist Episcopal 





Churen) 2 2).ut woe eee 58 «6,241 383 
Baptist Church......... 101 4,680 847 
Various organizations.. 120 6,657 525 

OLE So avec teen Fae 1,157 81,474 5,334 


The Salvation Army and others have 


their meetings for children. Number of 
participants unknown. 
Other Religious Influences. Boys’ 


Leagues, Scouts, Junior Chapters of Y. 
M. C, A., Y. W. C. A., Epworth Leagues, 
Bible Classes, ete. L. C. LARSEN. 


DENOMINATIONAL BASIS OF RELI- 


GIOUS EDUCATION.—I. Generalization 
of Church History. 1. The Lwing Fel- 
lowship. During the first generation fol- 
lowing the day of Pentecost, when the 
church began to be a visible force in 
human society, it was neither a political 
nor an ecclesiastical unit. It was simply 
a religious association, formless and name- 
less, at first composed wholly of Jews. 
These were later joined by many devout 
Gentiles, and subsequently, under the 
leadership of Paul, many Gentiles became 
Christians who did not share the faith 
and worship of the Jewish church. The 
unfinished Acts of the Apostles was evi- 
dently written at some time subsequent to 
Paul’s imprisonment at Rome, possibly 
after the apostle’s death. From the nar- 
rative of Acts the conclusion is inevitable 
that throughout the first generation of 
Christians, the only common designation 
of this group of believers was the Way. 


' 


Denominational Basis 


This seemed to characterize the attitude of — 


Christians as they loved God through 
Christ and helped each other in the serv- 
ice of humanity for love of Christ. 
Through all the changes which the cen- 
turies have brought this living fellowship 
has never ceased to exist. 

2. The Philosophical Church. Paul in- 


Tc ee ne 2 eee ce $a 


Denominational Basis 


troduced the living fellowship, the Way, 
_into the civilization and culture of Greece. 
Rationalism was the characteristic mental 
habit in Greece. To rationalizing minds, 
then as now, the Christian faith had to be 
translated into a framework of thought, a 
series of propositions which reason could 
approve and adopt. The living fellow- 
ship was made subordinate to the faith 
intellectually interpreted. Creeds inevi- 
tably began to appear. The human vital- 
ity of the fellowship was lost by the lead- 
ers who exalted intellectual conformity. 
The creed-makers of those early days were 
fighting life and death struggles for a 
recognition of the dignity of Christ and 
the integrity of the faith. Infidelity was 
confronted with the only weapons. ade- 
quate to meet the challenges of the unbe- 
lievers. The contribution of the Greek 
intellect to the history of the living fel- 
lowship is the philosophical creed-cen- 
tered church. 

3. The Ecclesiastical Church. The 
New Testament gives direct and indirect 
witness to the character and quality of the 
Christian fellowship which was estab- 
lished in Rome. Paul himself helped 
mightily to interpret the faith in terms 
of the ideals of imperialism, of world 
conquest. It was inevitable that the 
church at Rome should interpret its mes- 
sage and mission according to the domi- 
nant ideas of the place and age. Its peril 
became pronounced when it became the 
official religion of the empire. When the 
horde of barbarians demolished the power 
of the empire the only remaining nucleus 
of social order and control were the elders 
whose simple garb of service appealed to 
_the superstitious awe of the heathen con- 
-querors. The only alternative to church 
control was social chaos. The power 
which had been dropped by the paralyzed. 
fingers of the empire had to be taken up 
by the living hand of the church, the only 
available organ of government. 

_ The flood of invectives which have been 
poured forth upon the religious world- 
statesmen of that age are grounded in 
ignorance of the conditions confronting 
the church, and of the churchmen who 
confronted the existing conditions. The 
church became a church-state, a politico- 
Teligious organism embodying the only 
only ideals of organization compatible 
) with the times, closely articulated official 


337 


Denominational Basis 


unity set to realize a uniformity of reli- 
Aste profession and practice. Vision was 

ed on authority of unlimited scope, 
ability expressed through closely graded. 
authority, and energy born of a deep con- 
viction of responsibility under God and 
duty to mankind. The defects of the 
vision and the deficiencies of the organ 
created were due to the simple fact that 
the men responsible were fallible human 
beings. The contribution of Roman ideal- 
ism to the history of the living fellow- 
ship is the ecclesiastical, officer-centered 
church, 

4, The Doctrinal Church. It was in- 
evitable, in the course of time, that “in 
divers manners and divers portions” the 
conscience and reason of men should re- 
volt from. the intolerable claims of papal 
absolutism. Some have now come to see 
in Rome an organized doctrine of the 
church; in Lutheranism, an organized 
doctrine of sin; in Calvinism an or- 
ganized doctrine of God; in the com- 
posite of Zwinglianism, Arminianism, 
Anabaptism, and Wesleyanism, an organ- 
ized doctrine of the Holy Spirit. These 
were the most conspicuous rebels against 
papal and secular authority. Finding the 
freedom they demanded, reason and con- 
science did precisely what was inevitable 
under the circumstances. Doctrines 
which had been undiscovered, forgotten, 
or ignored had to be discovered, declared, 
and defended. Minds doctrinally con- 
genial had to be formed into groups on 
the basis of loyalty and devotion. His- 
tory has few more fascinating fields for 
study than is afforded by the Reforma- 
tion period, in which there are many con- 
flicting groups of men struggling toward 
the light with impassioned earnestness. 
The Jews of the post-exilian period were 
driven to hate all the pagan peoples sur- 
rounding them; their hatred was their 
protection against. the corruption and 
contamination of heathenism. The same 
principle in human nature led all these 
groups of the Reformation period into 
bitter and mutual antipathies. 

Of the seventeenth century Philip 
Schaff gives this word picture: “In this 
age of intense confessionalism and rigid 
orthodoxism the Catholic was excom- 
municating the Lutheran, the Lutheran 
was excommunicating the Calvinist, the 
Calvinist was excommunicating the Ar- 


Denominational Basis 


minian; each was condemning all the 
others to the penal fires of hell. Mean- 
while, there was not a missionary of the 
Cross in the whole earth, except John 
Eliot among the Indians on the western 
shore of the Atlantic.” Denominations 
were founded and churches organized to 
give expression to the doctrinal purposes 
which called them into being. The con- 
tribution of the Reformation period to 
the history of the living fellowship is the 
doctrinal, doctrinally divided, pulpit- 
centered church. 

5. The Practical Church. Originally 
each denomination claimed a monopoly 
of some particular phase of truth, or 
truths, essential to the interpretation of 
Christian faith and fellowship. But this 
claim could not endure in the face of a 
growing democracy, of increasing inde- 
pendency, and of the spirit of religious 
freedom. The consciousness began to 
pervade all parties that a doctrine is of 
value only as it is lived; that a doctrine 
which cannot be demonstrated in life is 
worthless; that doctrines not practiced 
will save no one; that doctrines contrib- 
ute to save only those who practice them 
in their attitude toward God and by con- 
sistent actions toward their fellow men. 

The social, political, and industrial 
changes of the past century have seen 
corresponding religious and_ spiritual 
changes in all sections of the divided 
church. All denominations are aware of 
the judgment of the average man who 
is the final arbiter of all doctrinal ideas, 
just as he is the final object of all efforts 
at salvation. The average man cares 
nothing about theoretical doctrines. The 
whole setting of the stage of human life 
has been shifted within the past century. 
The living fellowship has entered upon 
that period of its history in which the 
church which practices the Gospel of God 
toward all the objects of God’s love is the 
church which claims and receives the 
whole-hearted devotion of men. The con- 
tribution of the present age to the his- 
tory of the living fellowship is the edu- 
cational, service-centered church. (See 
Activity . . . in Religious Education; 
Social Aspects of Religious . . . Educa- 
tion ; Social Service and the S. 8S.) 

II. Types of Denominationalism. 1. 
Many denominational leaders declare that 
the churches now confront a situation 


338 


Denominational Basis — 


which requires a struggle for the right of 
denominational existence. The history of 
the living fellowship throws much light 
upon the nature of this contest. De- 
nominationalism that is based upon 
creedal statements and creedal differ- 
ences can command the interest only of 
philosophers. Denominationalism of the 
ecclesiastical type will continue to com- 
mand the devotion of those who yield first 
loyalty to the institution-loving instincts 
of the mind. The authority of organ- 
ized officialism is impressive and attractive 
to some types.of mind. Denomination- 
alism that builds upon doctrinal differ- 
ences can exist only in the face of effective 
opposition. But the progress of democ- 
racy works silently and inexorably toward 
the disintegration of this form of reli- 
gious partyism. ‘Time, rather than con- 
troversy, must pronounce final judgment 
upon all these types of divided loyalty 
in the living fellowship. 

2. A new type of denominationalism 
has come into being with growing power 
in the last decade. It grows out of reli- 
gious and educational conditions. The 
fundamental importance of education is 
a conviction which has deeper and wider 
hold upon the popular mind in America 
than any other one opinion. The growth 
of the public-school system and of private 
and state institutions of learning during 
the past generation is noteworthy. Reli- 
gious and educational leaders have been 
thoroughly aroused to face the educa- 
tional problem of the land. America is 
the only nation which supports a system 
of public instruction wholly secular. For 
the first time in the history of education 
a general system of public instruction has 
been created from which all teaching of 
religion, even the literature of living reli- 
gions, is rigidly excluded. 

Realizing that the church cannot look 
to the state to teach religion, the church 
is generally awakening to its responsi- 
bility. The church can do what the state 
cannot do. Since the state system of 
public instruction cannot be used to teach 
personal religion, it remains for the 
church to organize itself educationally to. 
do what the state is compelled to leave | 
undone. The free churches of Christ may | 
do together with radical thoroughness 
what Roman Catholicism has been doing 
in part, 1. e., make the Sunday schools 


Denominational Basis 


genuine public schools of religion, and so 
shape the activities of these schools as to 
give to all the youth of the land a true 
education in all that pertains to Chris- 
tian morals and religious life. This reli- 
gious education of youth needs to be sup- 
plemented by adapted courses of study for 
adults who have passed the school age, 
but who are face to face with parental, 
industrial, and religious problems created 
by the changed social order of modern ciy- 
ilization. (See Adults, Elective Courses 
for, in Bible Study; Organization, 8. 8.) 

_ Here may be found the educational 
basis for a legitimate denominationalism. 
‘Unlike any of the earlier types, it is not 
competitive in nature but codperative, not 
‘self-centered but community-centered, not 
set to build up the church out of com- 
munity life but to build up religious com- 
munity life by using effectively all the 
forces and facilities at the command of 
the church. It may require some read- 
justment of the church’s program on Sun- 
day and of the educational facilities pres- 
ent in the community. 

This new type of denominationalism 
may recognize its responsibility for pro- 
viding adequate religious education and 
spiritual culture for a definite group of 
‘people, for the local churches of a de- 
‘nomination and for all who can be reached 
In the local community by the activities 
of these churches. Many individuals and 
institutions have been used to bring about 
this changed attitude in church life. The 
growth of this educational movement 
among the denominations has been quiet, 
obscure, and, almost unsuspected. It is 
finding fullest realization and largest ex- 
pression perhaps through the Sunday 
School Council of Evangelical Denomina- 
tions (q. v.). In the counsels of this 
voluntary association the broad and gen- 
erous scope of educational codperation 
has come to be commonly recognized and 
increasingly appreciated. 

It is an open question whether uniform- 
‘ity in worship is essential to keeping “the 
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” 
On the other hand, there can be no ques- 
tion that the task of pastoring and teach- 
ing the nation is a task so urgent and so 
stupendous as to command the heartiest 
unity of spirit and the closest codperative 
effort, 



















R. P. SHEPHERD, 


339 


Denominational Responsibility 


DENOMINATIONAL RESPONSIBIL- 
ITY IN SUNDAY-SCHOOL WoRK.— 
In the discussion of this subject it seems 
necessary to present differences between 
words that are frequently used as inter- 
changeable. One of these is sectarianism, 
which, among other definitions, is “un- 
due denominationalism; excessive devo- 
tion to or zeal for a particular sect. An 
opprobrious epithet, especially if bigoted.” 
Fanaticism: “Extravagance of zeal; fero- 
cious ‘bigotry; intolerant and illiberal ad- 
herence to a religious creed or form.” 
Denomimationalism: “Disposition to up- 
hold denominationalism differences; ad- 
herence to a sect.” In simple justice to 
the present state of church affairs in the 
Christian world where true ideals have 
been recognized and established, all of the 
distinctions mentioned may be set’ aside 
with the single exception of “denomina-. 
tionalism,” which differs so materially 
from all the others that it is the only one 
that properly can have place in the pres- 


‘ ent article, 


The world is made up of families, dif- 
fering in numbers and more or less in 
relations to each other; these differences 
and these relations are normally of an 
entirely friendly character, evincing es- 
sential unity, although in many instances 
being diverse in opinions and in ordinary 
practice. Precisely in the same way the 
religious world is made up of groups or 
families, which are known as denomina- 
tions, not necessarily hostile to each other, 
holding much in common with regard to 
doctrines or principles, but differing mate- 
rially in organization and practice. All 
experience in the past has proved that 
only by varying denominations is it pos- 
sible that all sides of truths taught in the 
Bible may be fairly emphasized and main- 
tained, and the corruption that inevitably 
follows a great and dominating ecclesias- 
tical organization be avoided. While es- 
sential unity exists between the several 
religious denominations there are certain 
differences which are held to be sufficient 
to maintain separate organizations, which 
individually appeal for maintenance, and 
with the best possible results, as the teach- 
ings and practices are not essentially pro- 
ductive of strife. f 

On general questions that do not affect 
doctrinal ideas or denominational prac- 
tice there is not only no reason why there 


Denominational Missionary Extension 


should not be combined action, but in the 
more advanced Christian countries it Is 
becoming more and more a question of 
church federation, rather than of church 
union. After the home, the church ranks 
next in importance with the same require- 
ments for individuality. Whatever reasons 
exist for the maintenance of a church, it 
requires that the teaching department of 
that’ church or denomination should be 
thoroughly maintained in its Sunday 
school as a means of perpetuity and 
growth. Herein is found the argument 
for denominational teaching in the Sun- 
day school, which of course would include 
the use of only such material as will ac- 
centuate the particular church views. 
From this has eventuated the “Sunday 
School Council of Evangelical Denomina- 
tions” (g. v.), now one of the most im- 
portant religious bodies in North America, 
an allied body without any ecclesiastical 
features or judicial functions, but with a 
single purpose for mutual protection 
against efforts that tend to disintegra- 
tion of denominational ideas and practices, 
and exclusive of the idea of church union, 
or hostility to church federation ; it rather 
develops a strong argument for such fed- 
eration and the practical execution of 
plans for such federation that do not re- 
quire any sacrifice of principle. 

There cannot be any question, however, 
that each denomination is in duty bound 
carefully and faithfully to indoctrinate its 
children and youth and older members in 
all of the particular truths for which that 
particular church stands, the Sunday 
school, as a unit with the church, forming 
the medium for such instruction. This 
responsibility cannot be avoided nor ig- 
nored without certainty that in due time 
the church itself will be weakened and 
ultimately destroyed. 

C. R. BLAcKALL. 


DENOMINATIONAL SUNDAY- 
SCHOOL MISSIONARY EXTENSION.— 
To understand the relation of the denom- 
inations to Sunday-school work, it is neces- 
sary to remember that the modern Sun- 
day-school movement did not receive its 
inception by any denominational action. 
Individuals and individual churches saw 
the need and opportunity for giving in- 
struction to the young, who were growing 
up in ignorance and godlessness. As the 


340 


Denominational Missionary Extension — 


movement went forward, it was very soon — 


found that codperation was needed for 
enlarging and improving the Sunday- 


school work. 

Organizations—Denominational, Inter- 
denominational or Union. As the first 
Sunday schools were organized by indi- 
viduals, individual effort played a large 
part in the first years of the Sunday-school 
movement. 
members of churches, and so far as pos- 
sible, secured church codperation. But 
their efforts were at the first generally 
without regard to denominational affilia- 
tion. 

In the year 1791, the First-Day or Sun- 


day School Society (q. v.) was formed in | 


The movers were largely | 








| 
| 


Philadelphia, for the establishment of | 


Sunday schools. It was composed of 
members representing different denomina- 
tions of Christians, among whom were 
several members of the Society of Friends. 
This was, so far as. known, the oldest Sun- 
day-school society in the world. 

It was not, however, until the beginning 
of the nineteenth century that the Sun- 
day-school movement or Sunday-school 
societies were vigorously extended in 
America. From 1810 to 1825 a large 
number of schools were formed in differ- 
ent churches. From 1825 to 1830, many 
Sunday-school unions were established, 
and these organizations laid the founda- 
tions for many of the denominational Sun- 
day-school societies. 


Among the earliest promoters of Sun- | 
day-school work, John Wesley (gq. v.) | 





takes a prominent place. Even before the 
days of Robert Raikes (q. v.) he was in| 


the habit of gathering children together in 
different parts of England for religious 
instruction. He records in his Journal, 
July 18, 1784, that he found Sunday 
schools springing up wherever he went. 


In the same year there was incorporated in | 


the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church of America an article: “Where 
there are ten children, whose parents are 
in the society, meet them at least an hour 
each week.” From this time forward, the 
Sunday-school movement became an in- 


tegral part of the Methodist Church in| 


England, and the same methods were early 
transferred to America. In 1827 the Sun- 
day School Union of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church was organized in New York. 
It contemplated “The publication and ditf- 


Denominational Missionary Extension 


fusion of religious tracts and the Holy 
“Scriptures.” ‘This was the first denomina- 
tion to maintain the Sunday school as a 
part of its organized church life. It main- 
tained this responsibility throughout all 
its subsequent history, and in a greatly 
enlarged way the same work is now carried 
on by the Board of Sunday Schools into 
which the Union was transformed, 1908. 

Most of the other denominational so- 
cieties had their beginnings in interde- 
nominational or union efforts. A Sunday 
School Union was formed in New York in 
1816, but had a short existence. The 
Philadelphia Sunday and Adult School 
Union was formed in 1817. (See Sunday 
and Adult School Union, Philadelphia.) 
This in 1824 was merged, and formed a 
part of the American Sunday School 
Union. Many Unions throughout the 
United States became auxiliary to this 
Society, which has had the most promi- 
nent place of any Sunday-school organiza- 
tion of a union character. 

The Presbyterians, Baptists and many 
other denominations did not organize Sun- 
day-school unions, but availed themselves 
in the early years quite largely of the pub- 
lications of the American Sunday School 
Union, together with the juvenile liter- 
ature issued by Boards of Publication of 
their own denominations, or those of the 
American Tract Society. (See Tract So- 
ciety, American. ) 

The Congregationalists and Baptists of 
Massachusetts, in the year 1825, with the 
cooperation for a short time of Methodists 
and Episcopalians, formed the Massa- 
chusetts Sabbath School Union, and be- 
came auxiliary to the American Sunday 
School Union. The Baptist and Congre- 
gational churches carried forward this 
organization with some vigor until the 
year 1832. At that time it was thought 
best that a division should be made, for 
the sake of greater efficiency, and the Con- 
gregationalists formed their society, called 
The Massachusetts Sabbath School So- 
ciety, maintaining an auxiliary relation 
to the American Sunday School Union 
until the year 1839, when this relationship 
was dissolved. The Baptists retained the 
old name, The Massachusetts Sabbath 
School Union. It was remarked at the 
first meeting of the Massachusetts Sabbath 
School Society that instead of a division, 
it had really been a multiplication, as 


341 


Denominational Missionary Extension 


each Society had been able to carry on 
as large a service as the two combined. 

The Congregational denomination had 
also a Publication Society. The two 
united in the year 1868, and formed the 
Society which is now known as The Con- 
gregational Sunday School and Publish- 
ing Society. 

The Baptist Massachusetts Sabbath 
School Union united with a similar or- 
ganization of Philadelphia, which became 
The Baptist Publication Society, one of 
the strongest Sunday-school organizations 
of America. 

The Dutch Reformed Sunday School 
Union was organized in New York in 
1850, but was soon merged in the General 
Publication Society of the denomination. 

In the first fifty years of great Sunday- 
school activity, 1820-1870, union forms of 
service marked the movement. “It enlisted 
the life work of many noble men, and the 
support of a multitude of churches, but it 
Jacked the universal support of the Chris- 
tian denominations. From about 1870 
interdenominational Sunday-school move- 
ments became prominent, Very largely as 
a result of this, in 1872, at a National 
Sunday-School Convention at Indian- 
apolis, Indiana, a uniform system of les- 
sons was adopted. (See Uniform Lesson 
System. ) Sunday-school associations 
were formed everywhere. In 1875, 
twenty-one State Sunday-school conven- 
tions were held, and also a National and 
International Convention. ~ 

Denominational Needs and Opportu- 
nities. About this period, the unprece- 
dented development of new territories and 
states, the growth of great cities, and 
changes in centers of population made 
clear the need of greatly strengthening the 
missionary and extension Sunday-school 
work of the denominations. Thousands 
of communities were without religious 
services of any kind, and would remain so 
unless Sunday schools were established. 
These communities were composed of 
people of all denominations and different 
nationalities. They could not at first be 
united to form a church organization of 
any kind, and were very frequently with- 
out Christian leadership. They were 
anxious for preaching services and for 
the formation of churches. It was found 
that churches could be best developed from 
Sunday schools planted and fostered by 


Denominational Missionary Extension 


the representatives of some denomination. 
The planting of a Sunday school became 
the beginning of a church; hence there 
was new activity in denominational Sun- 
day-school effort. Denominations which 
had made the Sunday-school work a vital 
part of their church life were able to 
render a very great service. The growth 
of such denominations at this time was 
largely the result of Sunday-school activ- 
ity. Denominations which were not thus 
organized began to send out Sunday-school 
missionaries and superintendents, to meet 
the needs of the pioneers who had come 
from older states or from other lands. 
Important places for planting Sunday 
schools were found in cities, as well as on 
the frontier. (See Sunday School Union, 
American.) A quickening influence went 
out through the denominations from the 
splendid service of such leaders as Rev. 
J. H. Vincent (qg. v.), afterwards Bishop 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who 
was largely instrumental in putting Sun- 
day-school work upon a higher plane. 
He and others conducted Sunday-school 
institutes, established Chautauqua sum- 
mer schools, and introduced courses of 
Biblical study for teachers. (See Chau- 
tauqua Institution.) The Sunday-school 
representatives became not merely organ- 
izers of mission Sunday schools in desti- 
tute communities, but Christian states- 
men, sustained by their denominations, in 
laying foundations for the best things of 
the Kingdom. 

Interature and Extension. This mis- 
sionary and extension effort greatly stim- 
ulated the production of Sunday-school 
literature, and in a large number of de- 
nominations the publishing and Sunday- 
school interests became united under one 
Board of Directors, as was the case with 
the Baptist, Congregational, Presbyterian, 
and several other denominations. These 
common interests brought the denomina- 
tions into closer codperation. A Sunday 
School Editorial Association was formed, 
and steps were taken which improved the 
character of literature published, and 
greatly stimulated the extension of Sun- 
day-school work. (See Editorial Associa- 
tion, S. 8.) Out of this codperation arose 
efforts for systematic courses of instruc- 
tion, which led to the graded series, and 
this in turn brought the organizations and 
publishing houses into still closer codpera- 


342 


; 


x 
Denominational Missionary Extension 


tion in regard to all phases of Sunday- 
school work. 

The  Interdenominational Sunday 
School Council. In Philadelphia in 1910; 
there were called together Sunday-school 
representatives of Evangelical denomina- 
tions of the United States and Canada. 
(See Sunday School Council of Evangel- 
ical Denominations.) Nineteen different 
denominations were represented. It was 
found that these, with somewhat varying 
forms, had each at least four departments 
of work, publishing, editorial, educational, 
and missionary and extension. 

The Extension Section of this Confer- 
ence reported: 

“That there are hundreds of commu- 
nities in our rural districts and on our 
frontiers that are without Sunday schools 
and other religious agencies. There are 
multitudes of children and adults in 
these communities who are destitute of 
organized religious instruction and guid- 
ance, 

“Further, in communities already pro- 
vided with Sunday schools there are thou- 
sands who are not as yet cared for. In the 
United States alone, there are more than 
eight million children, native and foreign, 
who are outside the Protestant and Roman 
Catholic Sunday schools. It is appalling 
that one-third of a nation’s childhood 
should be Christless. It is also a matter 
of most serious concern that less than ten 
per cent of the adult life of the land are 
in the Sunday schools. | 

“In view of these facts, it is imperative 
that an earnest effort be made to extend 
the privileges of the Gospel to every com- 
munity, and that a further effort be made 
to reach and care for our entire child and 
adult life. 

“The Sunday School Council of Evan- 
gelical Denominations in the United 
States and Canada, therefore, pledges 
itself to an aggressive campaign for the 
extension of the Sunday-school interests 
of America. Its aims shall be a Sunday 
school in every community, and every per- 
son in a Sunday school. It earnestly urges 
the codperating bodies of the Council and 
all other Sunday-school agencies to unite 
in a forward movement to extend the priv- 
ileges of the Sunday school to all com- 
munities and people. 

“We rejoice to find that there is the 
heartiest codperation between the denomi- 


Denominational Missionary Extension 


nations in their Sunday-school extension 
_work, and that it is their purpose faith- 
fully to observe the principles of Chris- 
tian comity in the department of Sunday- 
school activity.” 

At the next meeting of the Council, 
held in Nashville, Tenn., 1911, the Sun- 
day-school organizations of twenty-eight 
denominations were represented, and re- 
ported :— 

“There are twenty-one per cent of 
churches in the United States which have 
no Sunday schools. In one state a single 
denomination has 608 churches which 
have no schools. In that same state there 
are more than 85,000 church members who 
are not in the Sunday school. These facts 
illustrative of conditions elsewhere, call 
for urgent effort on the part of churches 
themselves in the interest of self-preserva- 
tion. Churches which have excellent 
schools are often careless of their oppor- 
tunity. They should push out to strategic 
points in their own neighborhoods in their 
effort to reach the children. In the state 
of Maine alone there are 75,000 children 
unreached by any church; in round num- 
bers there are 100,000 children in that 
state who should be gathered into Sunday 
schools. In the study of statistics we find 
an enrollment of 14,000,000 in our de- 
nominational Sunday schools, and over 


650,000 in undenominational and union- 


schools. We recognize the fact that many 
of these union schools are ephemeral for 
want of special care, and we suggest that 
these schools be brought as soon as possible 
under the fostering influence of some 
denomination. 

“In ten years 8,000,000 foreigners have 
come to our shores. Churches should re- 
double their efforts to reach the children 
of these foreigners who are needing the 
help we may give and who are so open to 
religious influences. We recognize the 
work of the sane evangelist among the 
pupils but believe that the consecrated 
teacher is the best evangelist. 

“We call attention to the need of inten- 
Sive as well as extensive work. The most 
rapid increase in population in the United 
States is in the Hast, the Northwest, and 
the Southwest. The greatest emphasis on 
intensive church work in teacher training, 
and the like is observable in the Middle 
West. Redoubled efforts in organizing 
Missionary work should be made in the 


343 


. 


Denominational Missionary Extension 


direction of the drift of population. 
Therefore, be it 

“Resolved, I. That we rejoice in the 
hearty codperation of the Sunday School 
Boards represented in this Council in their 
work of Sunday-school extension. 

“TI. That in view of the imperative needs 
in all sections of our country we recom- 
mend a vigorous forward Sunday-school 
movement; and that there may continue 
to be as little overlapping as possible, the 
Boards recommend to all their field work- 
ers the most careful consideration of pri- 
ority of occupancy and the possibility of 
denominational fostering in the planting 
of new schools, and that whenever ques- 
tions of occupancy shall arise, consulta- 
tion be had with the representatives of 
the denominations concerned, with a view 
to a more successful forward movement 
which shall reach all regions of our coun- 
try with the greatest possible efficiency 
and the least possible waste of effort. 

“TIT. That, rejoicing in the growing in- 
terest of the church in the educational 
aspect of the Sunday-school work, and de- 
siring in every way to promote this inter- 
est, we feel it to be most important that 
the evangelistic mission of the Sunday 
school should not be overlooked, and that 
the vital necessity of Sunday-school ex- 
tension be kept constantly before our 
minds. 

“IV. That, in view of the fact that mil- 
lions of our American youths are grow- 
ing up without any Christian training, we 
call upon our churches to enter upon a 
vigorous campaign to carry the opportu- 
nity for a Christian education to our boys 
and girls wherever the way be found, and 
we exhort our Sunday-school workers to 
strive to bring into our existing schools 
those who are in their neighborhoods but 
not as yet members of these schools.” 

In the following year the special need 
of aggressive work in cities, as well as in 
rural communities and among aliens was 
emphasized, and the Council stated: 

“The church faces its most acute prob- 
lem in the city. The intellectual, social, 
political, and industrial forces that will 
eventually make or mar the progress of 
Christ’s Kingdom center there. The Sun- 
day school and childhood provide to the 
church both the agency and the objective 
for meeting the problems of the city if 
they are to be solved successfully. 


Denominational Missionary Extension 


“We therefore urge that our Sunday 
schools conduct an aggressive campaign to 
reach, evangelize, and train in Christian 
character the children of our cities. 

“We recognize the vast and important 
work which is being done in the rural 
communities under the survey of this sec- 
tion of the Sunday School Council and 
having a population of more than forty 
millions. The work is not only essential 
for those who permanently reside in the 
country, but for giving religious education 
to multitudes who become leaders in eco- 
nomic, social, and religious life in our 
great cities.” 

The Council recommended: 

“1, That rural schools be encouraged to 
secure the best possible literature and 
appliances for their work, even, when 
necessary, at greatly increased expense, 
and especially a better hymnology for Sun- 
day-school use. 

“2. In view of the educational advance 
in Sunday-school work we would recom- 
mend a strong effort to secure the codpera- 
tion of public-school teachers, educators 
connected with colleges, schools of agri- 
culture, and universities, in encouraging 
religious education and in widening the 
curriculum so as to interest and help 
larger classes of the community, making 
more attractive and giving a wholesome 
uphft to country life. 

“There is a general awakening of inter- 
est in work for the foreigners in America 
on the part of our denominational boards 
and societies. Many of these agencies are 
commissioning men whose sole duty it is 
to minister to these strangers within our 
gates. One important form of service is 
the preparation of literature in foreign 
languages. We would call attention to the 
vital importance of this work for the for- 
elgners among us and would recommend 
that it be earnestly prosecuted and en- 
larged as rapidly as possible.” (See For- 
eign Children, 8S. S. Work for.) 

The different denominations are organ- 
ized in different ways for the extension of 
Sunday-school work. In some, as in the 
Methodist Episcopal, there is a company 
of experts who have oversight of the edu- 
cational, the missionary and the evangel- 
istic features, stimulating the whole de- 
nomination, while the practical extension 
work is carried on by the organizations in 
each of the Conferences. This denomina- 


344 


Denominational Missionary Extension 


tion is greatly enlarging its Sunday- 
school work on the missionary and exten- 
sion side. 

The Baptist, Congregational, Presby- 
terian and many other denominations each ~ 
employ a large force of workers, codperat- 
ing closely with state and local organiza- 
tions within their respective denomina- 
tions, but responsible to a central Sunday- 
school and Publishing Board. 

The Presbyterian (U.S.A.) Board of 
Publication and Sabbath School Work, 
for the year 1911-12, reported a total force 
of 139 Sunday-school workers, and 23 
colporteurs, making a force of 162. This 
Board expended in missionary and exten- 
sion work for the year, $222,335. The 
Baptist, Congregational and many other 
denominations are expending in about 
equal proportion as to membership. 

Thousands of Sunday schools are or- 
ganized each year in communities where 
no other religious organizations exist. It 
is impossible to compare or summarize the 
results with accuracy, as the methods of 
organizations are so different. A band of 
noble men, and an increasing number of 
women are devotedly ministering to needy 
communities on the frontier, in rural com- 
munities of the older states and in grow- 
ing cities. They distribute vast quantities 
of good literature, donating many thou- 
sands of dollars worth each year to those 
who otherwise would be unprovided for. 
The workers are, as a rule, evangelistic as 
well as educational in methods, so that 
through these agencies many thousands 
are brought each year into the King- 
dom. 

It is realized that the Sunday school 
needs the best educational ideals which 
can possibly be given, and the missionary 
and extension work is carrying the best 
methods and best literature to rich and 
poor alike; to the American pioneer and to 
the strangers who are coming from all 
lands. By it the barriers of nationality 
and secetarianism are being broken down. 
It is realized that there is more to be done 
than all can do, and there is a spirit of 
cooperation and a strict regard for the 
work being done by sister societies. The 
missionary and extension work, fostered 
by the Interdenominational Sunday School 
Council, gives rich promise for the exten- 
sion of the Kingdom. 

Witt1am EwIne. 


Denominational Directory 


DENOMINATIONAL SUNDAY 
SCHOOL PUBLISHING DIRECTORY.— 
Sree APPENDIX: DENOMINATIONAL S. S. 
PUBLISHING DIRECTORY. 


DEPARTMENTAL GRADED LESSONS. 
—These lessons were planned by the Sun- 
day School Boards of the Presbyterian and 
Reformed Churches in North America to 
meet an existing need. 
tures of the new lessons are four: 

(1) Biblical in Basis. 

(2) Distinctively Evangelical in Char- 
acter. 

(3) Departmental in Construction. 

(4) Periodical in Issue. 

Believing that the needs of the Sunday 
schools called for these Departmental Les- 
sons without delay, the Presbyterian and 
Reformed Sunday School Boards in 1914, 
proceeded with the preparation of depart- 
mental lessons for the Beginners’, Pri- 
mary, and Junior departments on the basis 
of the International Graded Lesson out- 
lines, modified at many points. There is 
but one lesson at a time for each depart- 
ment, and the lessons are written with a 
view to the needs of all the ages included 
in that department. The Beginners’ 
Course, for pupils under six years of age, 
runs for two years and then repeats, new 
material being furnished on the same or 
a revised lesson list. The Primary Course, 
for pupils six, seven, and eight years of 
age, follows the present three-year outline, 
repeated or revised after three years, as 
may seem to be best at that time. The 
Junior lessons are planned to cover the 
first three years of the Junior Graded 
Course, and are intended for pupils nine, 
ten, and eleven years of age. 

It was felt that the new lessons would 
be found especially useful in the small 


Sunday schools, with an enrollment of 


) 
} 
) 


fifty members, more or less, in which 
such objections as these have been made to 
the use of the closely graded lessons: 

1. Too few pupils and teachers to have 
first and second year Beginners’ classes; 
first, second, and third year Primary 


classes; and first, second, third, and fourth 


year Junior classes. 

2. Even when there are enough pupils 
to form the various classes, and the re- 
quired number of teachers for the classes, 
there is still the problem of securing other 
persons to act as substitute teachers at any 


345 


The essential fea- 


Desire 


time of enforced absence on the part of 
the regular teacher. 

3. The lack of proper building equip- 
ment, making it impossible to separate so 
many departments and classes. 

4. The failure of many teachers to un- 
derstand that the closely graded courses 
for each grade begin the first Sunday in 
October, and not the first Sunday in Jan- 
uary, as do the Uniform Lessons. ‘The 
lack of this knowledge leads to the intro- 
duction of the lessons at the wrong time 
of the year. 

5. The greater initial expense compared 
with the cost of the material used in teach- 
ing the Uniform lessons. Many a single 
worker in a small school is convinced of 
the need for this greater expense, but he or 
she is unable to persuade the pastor, super- 
intendent, or other teachers that it is 
necessary for the proper Christian educa- 
tion of the young. 

In preparing the new courses it was the 
purpose to give satisfactory answer to 
these objections. 

The use of the lessons calls for the for- 
mation in many schools of only three 
classes of the elementary grades, with 
three teachers and three assistant teach- 
ers to act as substitutes during the absence 
of the regular teachers. It is entirely pos- 
sible for any school to arrange for at least 
three screened or curtained-off corners, 
and thus secure the separation for the 
three classes. 

The lessons are dated and published in 
quarterly form, the year beginning with 
January first, so that there will be no con- 
fusion as to the day on which a certain 
lesson is to be taught. 

In advertising the new course, the Pres- 
byterian Board of Publication urged that 
no schools which had been able to make 
profitable use of the closely graded series 
of lessons should change to the Depart- 
mental Lessons. J.T) Panis 


DEPARTMENTS OF THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL.—Strz Anputt; BEGINNERS’; 
CraDLE Rott; Home; INTERMEDIATE; 
JUNIOR; ORGANIZATION, 8. S.; PRIMARY ; 
SENIOR. 


DESERET SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION. 
—Srr Mormons. 


DESIRE.—SkEE Wit, EpvcATION OF © 
THE, 


Desk Talks 


DESK TALKS.—Under a uniform les- 
son scheme the superintendent’s desk talks 
are often but a reteaching or reénforcing 
of the lesson already taught by the class 
teachers. The superintendent adds new 
illustrations and sometimes new thoughts; 
but the importance of his talk is hardly 
in these, for these could be given to the 
classes by the teachers. Pedagogically 
such talks have been held to be important 
for four reasons. First, if any classes 
have poor teachers, these talks give such 
classes something to think about. Second, 
it has been thought to be desirable for a 
pupil to hear more than one teacher, and 
a different personality brings a different 
emphasis. Third, the advantages of uni- 
formity have been urged, and there is 
certainly more uniformity when all, old 
and young, hear the same words. Fourth, 
repetition is of recognized value in teach- 
ing, and almost any plan which encourages 
repetition without monotony meets with 
a response. (See Repetition in Teaching.) 

Under the modern graded lesson 
schemes desk talks can obviously not be a 
reteaching of the class lesson. Neverthe- 
less, the superintendent of a graded school 
may give desk talks which will serve all 
the above objects at the same time that 
they accomplish other ends. The super- 
intendent may think of his desk talk time 
as a second lesson period. ‘The period 
given to the teachers with their small 
classes is for work which requires careful 
grading and close personal influence. 
The superintendent’s period is for subjects 
which do not gain by such grading, or 
which gain more by the large-class or 
uniform method. 

For instance, while the Epistles can 
hardly be taught suitably for adult pupils 
and at the same time made interesting to 
the average Junior pupil, many of the 
Psalms may be studied and memorized 
by young and old together, the young en- 
joying the stimulus of working with the 
older pupils, and the older ones finding 
the same Psalms well worth learning, 
reviewing, or dwelling upon. Many Bible 
stories and many truths may be taught by 
either method, sometimes one method and 
sometimes the other being preferable. 
The superintendent, like the school prin- 
cipal, should be able to perceive when 
certain large subjects will gain by being 
taught to the school as a whole. 


346 


Detroit Boys’ Work 


In Sunday schools where religious days 
or seasons are observed, such as Christ- 
mas, Easter, or Bible Sunday, it is often 
better to make the observance of the day 
the subject of the superintendent’s talk 
than to break the regular graded class 

work, The making, structure, and history 
of the Bible may often be taught in a 
broad and inspiring manner from the 
desk. In schools that hold closely to Bible 
work in their graded lessons, the second, 
or superintendent’s period may be given 
to some other subject. Stories from the 
lives of missionaries, or stories from 
church history may easily be made inter- 
esting and profitable to all but to the very 
youngest pupils. 

Much is gained in the line of serious- 
ness and dignity if such subjects are taken 
as courses covering a definite period of 
time. Considerable denominational teach- 
ing may also be suitably given from the 
desk, and much rote memory work may 
well be learned or reviewed by the pupils 
as a whole. The Episcopal Church Year, 
although profitably studied a little by the 
small-class method, lends itself especially 
to drills, explanations, and Bible readings 
from the desk. Some days, however, 
should be given directly to Bible work, for 
Bible subjects should share the advan- 
tages that come from desk talks. 

Marianna C. Brown. 


“DES MOINES (IOWA) PLAN.’— 
SEE Crry Pian oF Reticious Epuca- 
TION; ReLIGIous PEDAGOGY IN COLLEGES 


AND THROLOGIOAL SEMINARIES, 


DETROIT BOYS’ WORK, THE.—-The 
work with boys which is carried on under 
the direction of the Detroit Young Men’s 
Christian Association is not peculiar as 
to form, but is rather typical, and to some 
extent, is prophetic. Though financed by 
the Association it is directed towards 
strengthening the efforts of the city 
churches in dealing with the boys of their 
parishes. With this in view, the boy’s 
membership in the Association becomes 
incidental to other things vastly more im- 
portant; through the advantages of mem- 
bership, an important point of contact is 
established with the boy’s life, and this is 
not neglected. 

When a boy joins the Association, in- 
quiry is made concerning his church 


Detroit Boys’ Work 


affiliation. The pastor of the church 


named is advised that this boy has become 


a member of the Association. This notice 
has frequently led to other efforts which 
have been instrumental in bringing whole 
families into the church. This record— 
whether a church member or only a church 
attendant—forms the basis for a subse- 
quent talk by the secretary with the boy 
on his relation to the church; also, in the 
ease of about fifty per cent of the boys, a 
frank talk with each one on his sex life, 
gives the secretary another opportunity 
for .a presentation of the claims of the 
religious life. 

A special secretary for high-school boys 
gives his entire time to them, regardless 
of whether they have membership in the 
Association or not. ‘Thus the secretary 
enters into friendly personal relations 
with the lives of from 300 to 500 boys in 
a year. His aim is to encourage these boys 
in right living and to help them even- 
tually to become identified with the 


church. In like manner, a special secre- 





tary for employed boys touches an equal 
number of youths who are at work. 
Older boys’ conferences annually bring 


together several hundred boys gathered 


primarily through the medium of the Sun- 
day schools. Many are stimulated to 
higher living, and through a definitely 
evangelistic service scores are won to 
Christ and to church membership. Once 
a year, as guests of prominent Christian 
business men, a recognition dinner is 


given in honor of the boys of the teen age 


who have, within twelve months, united 


with the various churches. 

A banquet for the men and boys of the 
parish is held in a local church. From 
100 to 400 attend these feasts. The 
supper is followed by some good music 
and a strong, inspirational speech is de- 
livered to the men and boys as they are 
still seated together at the tables. This 
address deals with the relationship be- 
tween man and boy, between father and 
son. The boys then retire for some recrea- 
tion, and the men remain at the tables to 
hold a conference in regard to the definite 
work which the men can undertake for 


_ the benefit of the boys of that church and 


neighborhood. 





Training classes are always held during 
the winter season, some of which are de- 


signed for men and some for older boys, 


347 


Diplomas 


in order to give them specific instruction 
in the leadership of boys’ groups in Bible 
study. ‘These classes furnish many young 
men as teachers for the Sunday schools 
who have had at least a degree of prepara- 
tion. 

The Association secretaries who are 
engaged in work with boys are constantly 
responding to calls for advice concerning 
Sunday-school work, boys’ clubs, scout 
troops, and other activities which are 
identified with church work with boys. 
Every secretary is also the teacher of a 
boys’ class in the Sunday school of the 
church with which he is identified. 

EK. C. Foster. 


DIKE, SAMUEL W.—Srr Home Dr- 
PARTMENT, 


DIPLOMAS.—In the Sunday school 
diplomas have found a place with the 
graduation of the schools and the intro- 
duction of definite courses of instruction. 
They are often an incentive to work, and 
are a tangible recognition of faithful ac- 
complishment and an evidence of a goal 
to be reached. If used in the right way, 
they may give an added dignity to the 
school study in the eyes of the young 
people, and raise the standard that they 
hold in regard to it. ‘ 

A diploma should be given on the com- 
pletion of an entire course planned by a 
school, and at the time of graduation, 
which would usually occur at eighteen or 
twenty years of age. Post-graduate and 
elective courses may be taken after the 
receiving of this diploma, at which time 
many young people may enter a training 
course for teaching, at the end of which 
they might receive teacher’s certificate or 
diploma. 

Certificates may be used with each pro- 
motion from grade to grade. These 
should be given as a true recognition of 
a merited promotion, and the moral ele- 
ment in the meaning of promotion should 
be emphasized to the pupils though 
promotions will be often wisely made in 
individual cases without such recognition. 

Opportunity is now offered for discrim- 
ination in the selection of certificates and 
diplomas. There are among those pub- 
lished a few simple and comparatively 
artistic productions, while many are not 
desirable. The most satisfactory plan is 


Director 


for the individual church to provide its 
own. (See Graduation and Graduate 


Courses. ) FreperIcA BEARD. 


DIRECTOR OF RELIGIOUS EDUCA- 
TION.—With the year 1909, a new type 
of paid religious worker began to appear 
in several of the larger churches. This 
was due to many causes, a few of which 
may be mentioned: (a) A conviction of 
the need of more intensive work on the 
part of the church in order that young 
people might be better instructed in Chris- 
tian truth and more adequately trained 
for Christian service. (b) The changes 
taking place in religious thought by reason 
of the advance in scientific knowledge, 
changes which affected profoundly the 
methods of psychology, pedagogy, Bible 
study, sociology, and theology. (c) The 
changes in social life, both rural and 
urban, demanding that the church should 
adjust itself to new conditions in order 
to become more efficient. (d) A sense of 
the strategic opportunity presented by the 
presence of young people in the Sunday 
schools and Young People’s societies, and 
the recognition that this opportunity was 
not being utilized to the full. (e) The 
neglect of moral and religious training by 
other institutions, such as the home and 
the day school. 

In view of the fact that the chief respon- 
sibility for the religious nurture of youth 
had devolved upon the church, under these 
conditions and in face of the demand for 
greater efficiency, it was evident that 
neither the pastor with his manifold 
duties, nor the lay superintendent with his 
lack of special training, was equal to the 
demand. It was felt that if the Sunday 
school wished to retain the confidence of 
parents whose children were receiving 
scientific instruction in the day schools, 
its educational work also must be con- 
ducted upon scientific principles and in 
accordance with efficient methods. In re- 
sponse to this manifest need and oppor- 
tunity, men and women of special aptitude 
and training began to enlist for this work. 
At the beginning of 1915, more than one 
hundred directors of religious education 
were at work in local churches, and the 
number was steadily increasing. 

What is the aim of the director of reli- 
gious education? What is his sphere 
within the church? What are his chief 


348 


: 
Director 


functions or duties? What are some of the 
dangers which he must avoid? And, 
finally, what should be his qualifications? 

I. Aim. The aim of Christian education 
is involved in that of the church itself. 
It may be stated thus: To develop lives 
of the Christian type, instructed, trained, 
and consecrated to the task of bringing to 
realization the Kingdom of God on earth. 
Education seeks to instruct in Christian 
truth and to train for Christian worship 
and service. It differs from other activ- 
ities of the church, not in aim, but in 
method. 

II. Sphere—1. In Relation to the 
Pastor. 'The director of religious educa- 
tion is not an assistant pastor, in the ordi- 
nary sense, duplicating the various activ- 
ities of the pastor. His relation to the 
pastor is analogous to the relation of a 
teacher to the principal of a school, or to 
that of the head of a department to the 
general manager of a store. While both 
pastor and director are alike servants 
and executives of the church, the pastor 
is the unifying and administrative head of 
all its work, and the director is the 
specially trained head of a single depart- 
ment. 

2. Relation to the Governing Board. 
If the governing board, session, or vestry 
appoints a Committee or Council of Reli-— 
gious Education, as in the larger churches 
it ought to do, this committee should act 
for the church in the supervision of its 
educational work, while the director 
should be the expert adviser and execu- 
tive of the Committee. The director 
should be selected by this body on account 
of his fitness for this work, and, as an 
expert adviser, he should inform the Com- 
mittee of whatever of significance was 
happening in this field, and submit to 
them his own plans for criticism and 
indorsement. (See Committee on Reli- 
gious Education.) | 

3. Relation to Heads of Departments 
and Organizations. In relation to the 
superintendents of the Sunday school and 
its departments, the presidents of soci- 
eties, clubs, and classes and all other 
organizations, whose work is in whole or 
in part educational, the director should — 
be the inspiring leader. As such, if his 
school be large, he may consider it advis- 
able to form a cabinet and to hold cabinet 
meetings occasionally, perhaps as often 





Director 


as once a month, for conference with head 
workers. 

With this general idea of his place in 
the local church, what additional duties 
will he have? 

III. Duties——In general, he should, 
with the approval of the Committee of 
Religious Education, direct the entire 
educational work of the church, both that 
among the young people and that among 
adults. Specifically the duties of the 
director may be classified and summarized 
under these heads: 1. Organization. 
Where many people work together at a 
common task, it is necessary to have care- 
ful organization. The director should 
organize upon a graded basis the Sunday 
school, the Young People’s societies and 
clubs, and the adult classes; he should 
‘see that these are provided with suitable 
Teaders, all carefully chosen from the 
adult membership of the church; he will 
organize, if such organizations are feas- 
ible, the Cradle Roll, the Home Depart- 
‘ment, the teacher-training work, and the 
‘parents’ class. Or, if he be wise enough 
to keep free from personal responsibility 
for too much detail, he will find com- 
petent men and women to do much of 
this work under his supervision. 

2. Correlation. The director should 
not be content with organizing these study 
and working groups. He should seek to 
correlate them with each other as integral 
parts of a unified educational system. 
‘Some idea of the complicated nature of 
this task will be suggested if it is remem- 
bered that the adult or graduate division 
of the Church School (q. v.) should be 
eorrelated with the young people’s or 
undergraduate division; the various de- 
partments, grades, and classes with each 
other; the young people’s societies and 
elubs with each other and with the depart- 
ments of the Sunday school; the Church 
School with other activities and interests 
of the chureh; the Church School with 
the home; with the denominational enter- 
prises and agencies; with city, state, and 
national associations. An ideal solution 
of this complex problem is impossible, 
but each director should work towards it. 
(See Educational Agencies of the Church, 
Correlation of the.) 
_ 3. Education. The director should be 
ideally, not only an organizer of educa- 
tional workers, but should himself be an 









349 


Director 


educator. He should know how to teach 
people and to train them for service by 
the most approved methods. Some fea- 
tures of his work as an educator might be: 
The selection of suitable courses of study 
and of programs of expressional activities 
for the various groups; instruction and. 
training of his teachers and workers ; con- 
ducting Bible, missionary, and social 
study classes, especially with a view to 
interesting and preparing leaders; in- 
struction, if the pastor so desires, and the 
communicant’s class; the preparation of 
occasional lectures on religious, educa- 
tional, or social subjects, or providing for 
lectures by others; conducting a parents’ 
class, when possible; and speaking at 
teachers’ meetings and conventions. 

4, Publicity. Few things succeed at 
present without adequate publicity. It 
will be necessary for the director to issue 
prospectuses and reports; to keep the 
church—especially the parents of the 
children—informed as to what the church 
is doing; to offer definite suggestions to 
parents in order to secure their codpera- 
tion with the school in its work of reli- 
gious nurture; to organize exhibits of its 
work; to write occasional articles on reli- 
gious education for papers and maga- 
zines; to prepare leaflets and pamphlets 
on practical phases of his work embodying 
this successful experience. 

5. Visitation. There should be added 
the pastoral oversight personally, or by 
proxy, of the young people of the church. 
The director should call upon his leaders 
and teachers as occasion may require, 
upon the parents of the pupils, and, when 
possible, upon the young people them- 
selves, particularly in time of sickness or 
trouble. 

This statement, designed to suggest 
some of the ideal possibilities of this 
office, might discourage a promising 
worker. It should be remembered, how- 
ever, that many of the suggestions would 
not be possible in all churches; that they 
are of varying degrees of value, and those 
of greater importance should take prece- 
dence of those less so; and that many ac- 
tivities, which may be described in a few 
paragraphs, are in practice scattered over 
the entire year or a period of years. 

IV. Some Dangers.—The director has 
temptations and dangers peculiar to the 
office. (a) Through concentration of in- 


Director 


terest and effort, he may fail to see his 
work in proper relations and in right pro- 
portion to the many agencies of the 
church; (b) he may be overwhelmed by 
the multiplicity of details; (c) he may 
make important changes without suffi- 
cient reflection and preparation; (d) he 
may come to regard the Church School as 
a miniature theological seminary; (e) he 
may regard his work from a point of view 
too narrowly individualistic, failing to see 
the work of the local church in relation to 
the collective church, whose business is 
the religious education of the whole com- 
munity; (f) he may fall into the danger 
of trying to secure spiritual results by 
mechanical means. 

V. Qualifications. A statement of the 
place and duties of a director suggests his 
necessary qualifications—those purely 
personal; and those derived from train- 
ing. (1) All the qualities of an ideal 
personality would be helpful in this work, 
but a pleasing address and a vital expe- 
rience of the saving and empowering grace 
of God as revealed in Jesus Christ are 
indispensable. Unless a man is pro- 
foundly in earnest, consecrated, tactful, 
and spiritual, he is unsuited to this serv- 
ice. A director should be a good organ- 
izer, a good executive, a good teacher, and 
an enthusiast who is “capable of inspiring 
others. (2) In addition to personal qual- 
ities, he should have had, as a preparation, 
“a college education or its equivalent, a 
full three years’ course in a theological 
seminary, with courses in religious educa- 
tion ; or, in addition to the college course, 
two years of study in an approved school 
of religious pedagogy. Or, he should have 
had, at the very least, “a high school 


training and two years of post-graduate’ 


work in an approved school of religious 
pedagogy.” 

The above are the requirements respec- 
tively for active and associate membership 
in the Association of Church Directors of 
Religious Education. 
Religious Education, Association of.) 
These requirements include special in- 
struction in educational psychology, in 
the principles and art of teaching, in the 
Bible and in Christian literature, and in 
practical sociology including the survey 
of fields and methods of service. He 
should have clear and sound views of the 
mission of the church in modern society ; 


350 


(See Directors of - 


¥ 
Directors Association 


and he should unremittingly seek the 
transformation of lives into the likeness 
of Christ and their consecration to the 
highest and most efficient Christian sery- 


TCE. W. H. Boocoox. 


DIRECTORS OF RELIGIOUS EDUCA- 
TION, ASSOCIATION OF.—The Asso- 
ciation of Church Directors of Religious 
Education was formed at the Cleveland 
Convention of the Religious Education 
Association of 1913. For a number of 
years previous to this, the educational 
directors of local churches, in increasing 
numbers, had been coming together for 
conference at the annual conventions of 
the R. E. A. Between conventions, there 
was a growing interchange of plans and 
suggestions among them by correspond- 
ence. In view of the fact that so much of 
their work was pioneer and experimental 
in character, and because of the need of 
establishing standard qualifications for 
prospective workers in this field, the con- 
viction steadily grew that some form of 
permanent organization was desirable and 
even necessary. (See Director of Reli- 
gious Education.) This resulted at the 
Cleveland convention in outlining a ten- 
tative constitution, which, as carefully 
revised at the New Haven Convention in 
1914, became the basis and law of the 
organization. 

The main features of the Association, 
as set forth, in this document may be 
briefly mentioned: The name chosen for 
the organization is, “The Association of 
Church Directors of Religious Educa- 
tion.” Its object is thus defined: To serve 
as a clearing house for ideas and methods 
which have been tested by experience, to 
maintain proper standards for Directors 
of Religious Education, and by acquaint- 
ance, correspondence, and conference to 
stimulate and aid each other to more 
efficient work. 

The membership is of two kinds, active 
and associate. For active membership 
those are eligible who have had a four 
years’ college course and have also had 
a full three years’ theological course in a 
seminary, with courses in religious edu- 
cation; or, who have had, in addition to 
the college course, two years of study in 
an approved school of religious pedagogy. 

For associate membership those are 
eligible who, though not having had a 


Disciples of Christ - 


college education, shave had a high-school 


training and two years of post-graduate 


work in an approved school of religious 
pedagogy, or its equivalent. Associate 
membership entitles one to all the priv- 
ileges of membership except voting. No 
one is admitted to membership in the 
Association unless he gives his entire time 
as an employed worker in the cause of 


_ religious education, either as a director 
in a local church or school, or as educa- 
_ tional secretary of a denomination. 


The officers, who are elected at the 


annual meeting of the Association held in 


connection with the regular conventions 
of the R. E. A., are president, vice-presi- 
dent, and secretary-treasurer. There are 
two standing committees: a Committee on 


_ Membership, whose duty it is to pass upon 





———— 


Eo 








all applications for membership and to 
increase the membership of the Associa- 
tion; and a Committee on Publicity, 
whose business it is to arrange for the 
exchange of ideas, suggestions, plans and 
methods of work which have been tested 
and approved in experience. The dues 
are $1.00 a year. Approximately one 
hundred persons are known to be engaged 
in this special service in local churches 
and the number is steadily increasing, but 
as yet less than half are enrolled members 
of the Association. 

Further information regarding the As- 
sociation may be obtained by addressing 
Rev. Henry F. Cope, Ph.D., general sec- 
retary of the Religious Education Asso- 
ciation, Chicago, Ill. 

, W. H. Boocock. 


DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, SUNDAY- 


SCHOOL WORK OF THE.—Upon the 
_ adoption of the Federal Constitution and 
_ compulsory 
sprang up in the new states a number of 
independent revolts against the existing 
rigid orthodoxy which was brought with 
the colonists from Europe. 
_ movement originated with the Presbyteri- 


religious toleration, there 
One such 


ans of western Pennsylvania and Virginia. 


_ Another, an intensely evangelistic move- 
ment, started with the Presbyterians and 


Baptists of Kentucky. The appeal of the 


_ first was for a reunion of all divided Chris- 
_tians upon the simple basis of the New 
_ Testament teachings, Christian fellowship, 
not to be divided or destroyed by any pri- 


vate or party interpretation of the Scrip- 


351 


Disciples of Christ 


tures. The appeal of the second was for 
an aggressive evangelization of all man- 
kind, men to become Christians by their 
voluntary obedience to the commands of 
Christ and the apostles, and to remain 
Christians through loyalty to the living 
Christ. These movements coalesced, or 
such parts of them as chose to codperate, 
and thus was produced the movement 
known, for purposes of statistics, as the 
Disciples of Christ. Locally they call 
themselves Christians. Their churches are 
called, according to local preference, 
Churches of Christ, Christian Churches, 
or churches of Disciples of Christ. They 
have no common name, no fixed standard 
of organization, no formal standard of doc- 
trine or discipline. Representing the ex- 
treme of individualism in religion, only 
their common loyalty to the world-pro- 
gram of Jesus Christ unites them in 
Christian faith and fellowship. 

Among the first agencies employed by 
the Disciples of Christ were a magazine, 
a weekly religious journal, and a college. 
They are committed to religious educa- 
tion, intellectual rather than emotional 
evangelism, and to the work of missions 
and social service. The social and educa- 
tional development of the past half-cen- 
tury has helped greatly to cause the Dis- 
ciples of Christ, as other denominations, 
to engage their energies in saving the chil- 
dren and youth of the church. 

The publishing interests of the Disciples 
of Christ have necessarily been in the 
hands of private individuals and corpora- 
tions, since the group of congregations had 
no centralized body which could establish 
and maintain business interests in behalf 
of the entire group. The Standard Pub- 
lishing Company of Cincinnati was one 
of the earliest and most aggressive sup- 
porters of Sunday-school progress. The 
Christian Board of Publication, which suc- 
ceeded the Christian Publishing Company 
of St. Louis, represents, as much as any 
business enterprise can, the Sunday-school, 
missionary, and benevolent interests of the 
churches. The Disciples Publishing Com- 
pany of Chicago, a codperative enterprise, 
is second to none of the others in Sunday- 
school earnestness and enterprise. The 
Sunday-school interests of many churches 
of Disciples, known uniformly in the 
southern states as Churches of Christ, are 
served by a publishing house in Nashville, 


Disciples of Christ 


Tenn. The ultra-individualism of the 
Disciples of Christ assures the widest pos- 
sible religious liberty and prevents any 
measure of uniformity in Sunday-school 
study and teaching, in teacher’ training, 
and in missionary and social welfare ac- 
tivities. 

The Disciples of Christ number approx- 
imately one and a third million communi- 
cants, about nine thousand congrega- 
tions, and nearly eight thousand Sunday 
schools. While much constructive Sun- 
day-school work was done by individuals 
it was not till 1907 that the work devel- 
oped a national organization. Marion 
Stevenson was the first National Bible 
School Secretary. In 1909 there was 
worked out by the Sunday-school leaders 
the “Front Rank Standard of Efficiency,” 
the first concrete, constructive and unify- 
ing program of work ever adopted by the 
Disciples of Christ. During the same year 
Robert M. Hopkins became the National 
Secretary. In 1910 the Sunday school 
secretaries of various state missionary 
societies were organized with the National 
Secretary into the Field Workers’ Asso- 
ciation for better codperation in unified 
work. The year following the Association 
of Colleges of the Disciples of Christ met 
in joint session with the Field Workers’ 
Association. So many common interests 
were found that the Board of Education 
of the Disciples of Christ was created to 
represent the joint interests of the asso- 
clations in the educational literature and 
enterprises of the churches, church schools, 
and colleges. 

Under the direction of the National 
Secretary of Sunday-school work the mis- 
sionary and benevolent offerings of the 
schools have been greatly increased, and 
wide-spread prayer and systematic study 
of educational and social service problems 
have been fostered. 

In 1914, 2,543 Sunday schools, out of 
a total of 7,792 Sunday schools reported 
by the Bible School secretary, contributed 
$39,566 to American missions; 1,234 Sun- 
day schools contributed $10,773 in the 
way of direct offerings to State mission- 
ary work; 4,122 Sunday schools gave 
$92,753 to foreign missions; and 2,116 
Sunday schools contributed $35,589 to 
foreign missions; making a total mission- 
ary and benevolent offering of $178,747. 

The leaders among the Disciples of 


352 


Discipline — 


Christ heartily support the Graded Lesson 
system. A very large proportion of the 
schools are using the lessons in whole or 
in part. One publishing house supplies 
an edition of the syndicate lessons and two 
other houses issue their own editions of 
Graded Lessons with lberal modifications 
of the International Lessons as followed 
by other religious bodies. With more than 
thirty workers giving their whole time to 
religious education in and through the 
Sunday school it is confidently hoped that 
practically all the Disciples of Christ will 
make use of the adapted lessons at a very 
early date. 

The new program of teacher training is 
being eagerly adopted. There is growing 
dissatisfaction with the memoriter type 
of work which has widely prevailed, be- 
cause of its superficial results. The newer 
training aims at thoroughness and effi- 
clency. 

R. P. SHEPHERD. 


DISCIPLINE.—The object of religious 
education is as much to establish valu- 
able habits as it is to impart religious 
facts. The Sunday school is a place for 
discipline: in reverence, in punctuality, 
in habits of regular study of the Bible, in © 
attention, in order, in honesty—in all 
things indeed that go to build up char- 
acter. 

The strong school is carefully organized. 
Everything has its place and falls into 
its place at the proper moment without 
noise or confusion. The service begins 
always on time. No one waits for any 
one else. The program has been planned 
in all its details and it moves with mili- 
tary promptness and precision. This in 
itself is an element of discipline of no 
mean value. 

The next element comes from proper 
grading. Classes must be homogeneous. 
Grading is based upon age and develop- 
ment. The grading in the secular schools 
is a help in determining the Sunday- 
school grading. There must be classes of 
boys and classes of girls. In the Begin- 
ners’ grade they may be taught together, 
but not in the higher grades. (See Mixed 
Classes.) The classes in the elementary 
department should be kept reasonably 
small. Disorder often arises from the 
attempt to manage too large a number. 
Graded Lessons should be used, and so far 


as possible they should be taught by 
teachers who have been trained in their 
use. All this makes for discipline—the 
molding of the good tendencies of chil- 
dren into fixed habits. 

So far the discipline of the school falls 
upon the superintendent and his board of 
officers; all the other elements of dis- 

‘cipline must come from the teacher. It 
Peeves upon him to keep order during 
the lesson hour, to secure and retain at- 
tention, and to see that no evil tendency 
‘upon the part of the pupil is allowed to 
develop unchecked. 

_ In the minds of many teachers the 
‘matter of preserving order is unneces- 
‘sarily burdensome. The teaching hour is 
filled from beginning to end with prohi- 
bitions and threatenings and scoldings. 
In many schools the elementary teachers 
are looked upon almost as martyrs. The 
difficulty arises largely from lack of or- 
ganization and from ignorance of children 
and of proper methods of work. (See 
Children, Ignorance of.) First of all, it 
must be understood that small children 
eannot be handled in the same way as 
adults. Children in the Beginners’ and 
the Primary Departments are often 
troublesome because of spontaneous activ- 
ity. They have no conscious intention of 
being bad; they are simply children, alive 
in every muscle, and they cannot keep 
quiet for long periods, They are filled 
with a perfectly natural curiosity, and as 
-yet have acquired no fixed habits of de- 
‘portment in a Sunday-school room. The 
‘first requisite for order is to secure proper 
‘physical conditions for teaching; the 
‘second is to require attention only for 
short periods and to vary the program by 
introducing physical exercises; and the 
third is the provision for handwork which 
will keep the child active and attentive 
at the same time. 

With Junior and Intermediate pupils 
the problem is not so easy. The small 
class will be of some aid, but the teacher’s 
personality is the leading factor now. If 
it is a class of boys the teacher must be 
a man who understands boys and who has 
a masterful and yet a winning manner. 
(See Boys, Men Teachers for.) The 
teacher of girls must be a womanly 
woman, forceful and yet lovable. She 
must have self-confidence, self-control, 
and common sense. The Junior teacher 


Discipline 








353 


Discussion Method 


should never scold nor threaten unless 
absolutely determined to carry out the 
threat. He must be recognized by his 
pupils as one who is thoroughly acquainted 
with the lesson he is teaching, and who 
can present it interestingly. He should be 
patient, yet he should allow no mischief 
to go on unchecked. And finally he 
should be so much of a boy that the pupils 
will be conscious of his sympathy and 
appeal to him even for aid in their play. 

Lack of discipline often indicates a 
lack of interest. The teacher who com- 
plains that he has a class of bad boys is 
criticizing not his class but himself. He 
has failed, and therefore the class has 
failed. Instead of scolding and threat- 
ening and even punishing he should get 
the class interested in something. The 
instincts of the pupils can be drawn upon 
for aid. (See Class Management.) The 
Junior lad is in the collecting stage of his 
development: have the stamp collector 
bring in his stamp album and use that as 
the starting point, or ask for collections 
of seeds or of woods or of something that 
may be used as a point of contact with 
the lesson. A busy class is an orderly 
class, no matter how noisy it may be; the 
class should be kept busy. It will require 
careful planning beforehand, but the 
results will be amply rewarding for all 
the effort expended. 

Each pupil should be studied individu- 
ally and dealt with according to his per- 
sonality. Some must be urged forward, 
some must be restrained; some are in- 
tellectual, others are emotional; some are 
out of place indoors and are at their best 
only when active on the playground, 
others like quiet games by themselves or 
a book in their room. The real teacher 
studies his pupils as much as he does the 
lesson, and when once he has become 
really interested in the individual pupil, 
the matter of maintaining order will 
adjust itself. 

Discipline, as related to the work of 
the Sunday school, may be defined as the 
result of an orderly and repeated presen- 
tation of truth, leading to correct habits 
both of thinking and of acting. 

F. L. Patter. 


DISCUSSION METHOD OF TEACH- 
ING.—Srt Drpatina as A METHOD OF 
INSTRUCTION. 


Disorder 


DISORDER.—Srre Cuass 
MENT; DISCIPLINE; PEDAGOGY. 


DISTRACTION.—Srr ATTENTION; 
PEDAGOGY. 


DOING, LEARNING BY.—Srxr Moran 
PRACTICE, 


DOUBT, DEALING WITH, IN THE 
SUNDAY SCHOOL.—With little children 
the problem is often to curb an excess of 
faith rather than to cure doubt. Some- 
times they will expect God to do things 
that lie easily within man’s power, or come 
by man’s cooperation with God. They will 
pray that broken toys or feathers may be 
mended by miracle, and they will be con- 
fident of an answer. Innocent doubt may 
follow their disappointment. The treat- 
ment here must emphasize the fact that 
God cannot be used merely as a labor- 
saver and that his chief field is within 
the soul, which he makes strong enough 
to command the body to perform its proper 
tasks, 

With older pupils the problem of doubt 
is wholly different. It is first necessary 
that the doubter be classified ; for doubters 
are of several kinds: (1) Those who ask 
for mathematical proof in the spiritual 
realm. ‘These must be shown that for the 
most part proof must come from the realm 
involved. (2) Those who are troubled by 
unsteady and gloomy temperament, as 
was Thomas. These must be given a new 
religious climate, an upper room. (3) 
Those whose spiritual nature has atro- 
phied through neglect. These must be 
furnished food for the starved life, a book 
or a religious service. (4) Those who 
have overemphasized reason. ‘These must 
be taught that the mind is but one factor 
in the problem and that human nature in 
its wholeness must be given a chance. (5) 
Those whose doubt comes from an evil 
will. These must be patiently led until 
they yield obedience to some spiritual 
truth and secure a right attitude toward 
some fragment of light. 

The following general principles should 
govern the teacher in his dealing with the 
doubting: (1) The field of doubting is 
not only in religion. All things eventu- 


MANAGE- 


ally are mysterious, both the breeze of 


the air and the breath of the divine spirit. 
(2) Men must learn to trust their normal 


354 


Doubt 


faculties, their hopes and longings as well 
as their hands and minds. (38) Heed 
should be given to the example of Jesus, 
who in dealing with doubt always acted 
positively, as in the cases of Nicodemus 
and Thomas. There was no harsh attack 
on doubt, but a vigorous stimulation of 
faith. (4) It is necessary to find some 
one point of real faith and to make that 
a starting point. So did Horace Bushnell 
deal with himself. (See sermon on Dis- 
solving of Doubts.) 

In dealing with particular forms of 
doubt the suggestions may be given thus: 

1. In trying to assure those who are 
troubled about the Bible, teachers should — 
insist that the Bible should be kept in its 
own field—that of moral and spiritual 
guidance—and that it should be tested 
by its goal, that is, by Jesus Christ. The 
simplest treatise for practical use is prob- 
ably Lyman’s A Plain Man’s Working 
View of Inspiration. 

2. The person who doubts the efficacy 
of prayer should be shown that there is 
no philosophical reason why a Great Spirit 
should not aid a little spirit, and that the 
main realm of prayer’s working must be 
in the spirit of man. If this one path of 
prayer be opened, the road will become 
wider. A good brief discussion is Trum- 
bull’s Prayer: Its Nature and Scope. 

3. If pupils doubt the divine person 
and power of Christ, the line of teaching 
is varied—too varied for sketching here. 
A good extended argument for older pu- 
pils is Liddon’s The Divinity of Our Lord. 
The best treatise is Horace Bushnell’s 
“The Character of Jesus,” which is the 
tenth chapter of Nature and the Super- 
natural. 

4, For those who doubt the possibility 
of salvation by divine power, the best 
appeal is to fact. Such works as Begbie’s 
Twice Born Men and Souls in Action may 
be safely used. 

5. Should pupils pass through sorrow 
and come to doubt the divine providence 
and love, the emphasis must be put on 
the disciplinary value of the painful ex- 
periences of life. Savage’s Life’s Dark 
Problems is a simple and helpful discus- 
sion of this theme. On the other hand, 
pupils should be put on guard against 
the doubt that comes from joy. “Too 
good to be true” often works havoc with 
religious faith. The goodness of a truth 


Drama League 


is not in itself an argument against the 
_ truth. 

6. The doubt of immortality may be 
lessened or dissolved by putting stress 
upon the fact that the arguments against 
the endless life are mainly negative, such 
as the disappearance of our friends in 
death and the inability of the imagination 
to picture the form of the other life. On 
the positive side the arguments may be 
drawn from instinct; from the unity of 
personality and the persistence of force; 
from man’s feeling that he has powers 
that require more than an earth-span for 
development; from the certainty that the 
inequalities and injustices of the world 
remain uncorrected unless there is a fu- 
ture life; and, finally and supremely, 
from all these arguments as they center 
in Christ and are crowned with his per- 
sonal assurance. Good books for training 
faith are the various volumes of the Inger- 
soll Lectures at Harvard on Immortality ; 
Jefferson’s Why We May Believe in Lrfe 
After Death; and Brown’s The Christian 
Hope. 

In all cases the main treatment of doubt 
must be related to life. If the Bible be 
lived, prayer used, Jesus followed, salva- 
tion tested, sorrow honored, immortality 
practiced—doubt will become less and less. 
Moreover, it must be urged that it is un- 
fair always to put the presumption in 
favor of doubt. Professor Bowne’s rule 
that a man should believe all he can and 
doubt all he must, rather than believe all 
he must and doubt all he can, is the only 
vital and fruitful rule. Good books for 
general use in this connection are Mc- 
Connell’s Religious Certainty and Smyth’s 
Personal Creeds. 

KR. H. HuGHEs..- 


DRAMA LEAGUE OF AMERICA.—SzExz 
PAGEANTRY. 


DRAMATIZATION, THE USE OF, IN 
TEACHING.—Robert Louis Stevenson 
_ called our attention to the fact that the 
way a child tells a story is not so much by 
speaking as by means of action. It is by 
~ action too that he best appreciates a story. 
It is the “doing” side of a story that 
appeals to him. A number of ways have 
been discovered of utilizing this dramatic 
instinct in Bible study. (See Pageantry.) 

The simplest method of dramatizing is 


355 


Drawing 


to ask the individual members of a Sun- 
day-school class to assume or to imperson- 
ate the separate characters in a Bible les- 
son. This may be done by having them 
read the Scripture passage in such a way 
that each one reads the portion that be- 
longs to his own character, .or, still better, 
after the story has been told to them, to 
have each one invent appropriate dialogue, 
enlarging upon the narrative of the Scrip- 
ture. 

This method has been carried a step 
further in a series, called Biblical Dramas, 
prepared for use in Sunday-school fes- 
tivals and Christian Endeavor entertain- 
ments. In these little Scripture dramas, 
performed without the use of scenery, the 
various characters arrange themselves in 
appropriate positions upon a platform and 
read or recite the dialogue, with a min- 
imum of action, somewhat in the sim- 
plicity of the old miracle plays. 

The dramatic method has been elabo- 
rated still further in a church organization 
for young boys, called “The Brotherhood 
of David.” In this society the boys repre- 
sent themselves as comrades of David from 
his boyhood to the time when he won his 
kingdom. ach boy takes the name of a 
Scripture character, and, by a study of 
the Tissot pictures, constructs simple cos- 
tumes. The initiations and outdoor ac- 
tivities portray those of a shepherd’s or 
an adventurer’s hfe in Old Testament 
times, and at the indoor meetings there is 
informal and active study of Old Testa- 
ment stories and of the Psalms. (See 
Boy, The Problem of Training the.) 

These methods arouse an active par- 
ticipation on the part of the pupils, lead 
to research and analysis of Scripture 
biography, and lend themselves easily to 
constructive forms of handicraft. 

W. B. ForsusH. 

References: 

Benjamin, W. R. The Story of 

Joseph. (New York.) ; 

Finlay-Johnson, Harriet. Dramatic 

Method of Teaching. (Boston, 1912.) 

Forbush, W. B. and Masseck, F. I. 
Brotherhood of David. (Detroit.) 

Hale, H. G. and Hall, N. M. Bub- 
lical Dramas (a set of six). (Boston, 

1906.) 


DRAWING.—SrEE BLACKBOARD AND ITS 
Use; Hanpwork IN THE S. 8. 


Drexel Biddle Classes 


DREXEL BIDDLE BIBLE CLASSES.— 
This name has been given to an affiliation 
of Bible classes aiming to promote Chris- 
tian unity, brotherhood, and social fellow- 
ship among Christians of every name, and 
in every place. It is the outgrowth of the 
Bible class work of Mr. Anthony Joseph 
Drexel Biddle, F.R.G.S., of Philadelphia. 

Early in 1908, after exhausting the 
pleasures of wide travel, of athletic sports 
in which he excelled, of club life, and of a 
social prominence made possible by large 
wealth and social position, Mr. Biddle re- 
solved to devote his life to the service of 
the Master in the uplift of his fellow man. 
Under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Floyd 
W. Tomkins, rector of Holy Trinity 
church, he took charge of a Bible class of 
three young men. In a little while under 
the magnetic leadership of Mr. Biddle, 
the class numbered over one hundred. 
Then he urged upon them the necessity 
for some work outside their own church, 
and deputations went out and organized 
Bible classes in several other parishes. 
Mr. Biddle was in constant demand by the 
clergy, and his visits usually resulted in 
the organization of a new Bible class. 
These classes began to call themselves 
Drexel Biddle Bible classes, and the move- 
ment was begun in the most spontaneous 
and unpremeditated manner. A button 
was adopted with the rising sun as the 
emblem, and the motto, “We aim to cover 
the world.” 

In May, 1912, the movement took 
definite form by the adoption of a consti- 
tution of the simplest possible character 
which declares: “The object of this move- 
ment shall be to promote the study of the 
Bible, to advance the brotherhood of man, 
and to encourage the unity of the 
churches.” 

The whole movement is singularly free 
‘from prescription or routine. A simple 
request brings affiliation. ‘There are no 
fees, dues, or assessments. A class does 
not lose its name or its individuality in 
any respect. It may pursue any form of 
Bible study that it finds most helpful, and 
the whole plan is so exceedingly flexible 
that it adapts itself to local conditions in 
every instance. 

There are some unique features which 
have been developed by Mr. Biddle and 
his associates which have been found to 
be of great value. One of them is the plan 


356 


Drexel Biddle Classes 


of “rotating leadership,” 1. ¢., instead of 
having one teacher all the time, one or 
two of the members are appointed to con- 
duct the class and to present their ideas 
on the lesson at the next session. This 
is of great value in promoting a study of 
the lesson, and in the discovery of talents 
for speech and exposition. And in this 
way the Bible class becomes a most effec- 
tive training school for Sunday-school 
teachers. 

Interclass visitation is another feature 
that has been developed with fine results. 
Deputations are sent out constantly to 
visit other classes, and sometimes whole 
classes meet together in joint session. 
Denominational lines are forgotten, for 
the classes believe that the best way to 
encourage Christian unity is to unite: 
to practice unity, not merely to talk about 
it. 

The founder believes most heartily in an 
athletic gospel, and encourages athletic 
sports of all kinds as calculated to develop 
a healthy body. Athletic meets are held 
and a generous and sportsmanlike rivalry 
encouraged. The young man is given 
his sports and games under the fostering 
care and oversight of the churches and 
under healthy surroundings. 

In the different states and in the larger 
cities chief directors are appointed, and 
under them district superintendents, each 
caring for his particular district. In the 
city of Philadelphia educational rallies are 
held at intervals in the different districts 
which are addressed by men of national or 
local prominence. A summer home is 
maintained in a near-by suburb where ath- 
letic sports of all kinds are provided for, 
and which is visited by nearly a hundred 
thousand persons during the season from 
May to October. A similar home is main- 
tained near Providence, R. I. 

Without any organized propaganda, the 
number of affiliated classes has increased 
with a marvelous rapidity. Classes are 
affiliated in nearly one half of the states 
of the United States, in the West Indies, 
England, Scotland, West Africa, and 
Australia. It was carried to these places 
by those who had come in touch with it 
in America, 

This movement is essentially a laymen’s 
movement, for while a great many of the 
clergy are deeply interested in it as hon- 
orary officers, or as members of the Advis- 


nels ae 


Drummond 


ory Board, yet the chief directors and su- 


_perintendents are all laymen. Loyalty to 


clergy and church is strongly urged as the 
paramount duty of every Christian worker. 

As may be seen from this brief account, 
the affiliation and work of the classes is 
along social rather than religious lines. 
It leaves each class free to work out its 
own problems in its own way, but gives it 
an inspiration of brotherhood, of enthusi- 
asm, of sunshine and cheerful social serv- 
ice in order to lead to a deeper and broader 
spiritual life in the service of the Master. 

G. S. GASSNER. 


DRUMMOND, HENRY (1851-97).— 
Was born in Stirling, Scotland, and edu- 
cated at the High School there, and at 
Morison’s Academy, Crieff. In 1866, he 
entered the University of Edinburgh, 
where he completed a course in the 
Faculty of Arts. He became a student of 
the Theological College of the Free 
Church of Scotland in 1870, at the same 
time attending the classes of natural 
science in the University, and after three 
sessions he went to Germany for a summer 
semester: at the University of Tiibingen. 
Then, postponing his final session in theol- 
ogy, he began work as a city missionary 
under one of the Free Churches of Edin- 
burgh. 

The religious life of the country was 
then beginning to be stirred under the 
American evangelists D. L. Moody (gq. v.) 
and Ira D. Sankey. In support of this 
mission, Drummond was soon called upon, 
along with other divinity students, to ad- 
dress meetings in various parts of the 
country. Though only in his twenty-third 


_ year, Henry Drummond at once became a 
_ prominent if not a famous man. His un- 
_ affected earnestness, his unerring tact, his 





_frank and radiant disposition, and his 


magnetic personality raised him to a 


_ position scarcely second to that of Moody 
_ himself. Drummond’s chief strength lay 


in his dealing with young men. For two 
years he was engaged in following up the 
evangelists as they passed from town to 
town, organizing the young men, and leav- 
ing them to carry on the work in their 
own neighborhood. 

In 1875 at the close of the mission, 
Drummond returned to Edinburgh to 
complete his theological course. Next 
year he was appointed lecturer in natural 


357 


Drummond 


science in the Free Church College, Glas- 
gow; the lectureship was soon after raised 
to a professorship, which Drummond 
filled until his early death in 1897. 
Though highly successful as a science 
teacher and scholar, he carried on during 
those years a work of more importance to 
the world in the religious meetings he 
organized and often addressed among the 
students of Edinburgh and Glasgow 
(1884-94). With a view to promoting 
similar work in other lands Drummond 
visited many colleges in the United States 
in 188%, and again in 1893, and in Aus- 
tralia in 1890. 

To many persons Henry Drummond is 
best known by his books, especially by 
Natural Law wn the Spiritual World, and 
The Ascent of Man—books which were 
written for the purpose of showing the 
solidarity of the universe and the identity 
of, or at least the close analogies between, 
the laws which obtain in the material and 
in the spiritual sphere; and these books 
have brought light to thousands and 
pointed the way to a more adequate phi- 
losophy. His life work, however, bore its 
richest fruit in the religious influence 
which he exerted upon university students 
and other young men. His equipment for 
such work was ideal, and the results were 
beyond the scope of numerical calcula- 
tion. Over those of younger years, espe- 
cially boys in their early teens, Drum- 
mond had wonderful power. During the 
Great Mission, he addressed many meet- 
ings for children, and was required to give 
evangelistic addresses at both Sunday 
schools and day schools. During the pe- 
riod of the Student Movement in Edin- 
burgh, meetings for boys were held and 
were regarded by Drummond himself as 
very useful. 

Henry Drummond was a great favorite 
with boys, and he loved their company. 
He was always ready to engage in a frolic 
or to invent some new game. His biog- 
rapher, Professor George Adam Smith, 
says, “T’o the end he preserved the vivid 
memory, which only the pure in heart 
preserve, of what he himself had been 
when a boy.” As regards the religion of 
childhood, Drummond’s attitude was sane 
and cautious; he shrank from any emo- 
tional development which had not some 
intellectual conviction beneath it. He 
recalls his own experience when at the 


Drummond 


age of twelve he “had a great work going 
through Bonar’s God's Way of Peace, but 
thinks it did him harm.” While few men 
had more evidence of the reality of “sud- 
den conversions” than Drummond had as 
an evangelist, he did not regard this expe- 
rience as necessary—scarcely, perhaps, as 
normal—and certainly not so in the case of 
children who had a good home training. 
Children’s meetings were addressed al- 
most under protest. When pressed to 
speak on matters of personal religion to 
a lad who had no desire for such conversa- 
tion—a situation which was: peculiarly 
distasteful to him, though an ardent be- 
liever in personal appeal in general—he 
would sometimes make his position clear 
by such a remark as, “Well, I suppose 
you know that this is a put-up job.” 

While convinced of the importance of 
religion in boyhood as well as in manhood, 
Drummond always maintained the funda- 
mental distinction that “a young man’s 
religion cannot be the same as his grand- 
mother’s.” In writing of the Edinburgh 
Boys’ Meetings he says, “Last Sunday, 
after the hour’s meeting, I sent all the 
rest home and kept two or three hundred 
of the big ones for a private talk about 
decision. We did not think it wise to 
cross-examine them individually, or to put 
any undue pressure upon them, but I am 
sure many of them are thinking most 
seriously. One difficulty is to get it into 
their heads that they are to be religious 
as boys, and that they need not be so 
‘pious’ as their maiden aunts.” *« The 
Boys’ Brigade (g. v.) movement appealed 
to Drummond chiefly because it intro- 
duced religion into a thoroughly natural 
boy-atmosphere. “Until the B. B. was 
discovered,” he wrote in Good Words, 
“scarcely any one knew how to make a 
man, a gentleman and a Christian out of 
a message-boy . . . but under the new 
process you have them by the battalion.” 
(The whole article may be taken as con- 
taining Drummond’s credo in the matter 
of the boy.) The promotion of a true 
Christian manliness by methods natural 
and congenial to boys, which is the aim 
of the Brigade, was precisely Drummond’s 
object in dealing with boys. The best ex- 
ample of his religious teaching for boys 
may be seen in his story, Baxter’s Second 
Innings, but the efficiency of that teach- 
ing depended less upon the doctrine than 


358 


; 


Duty 


upon the personality of the teacher, and 
on his “genius for friendship,” which 
made itself felt even in the large gather- 
ings with which he Bain had to deal. 
JoHN GUNN. 
References: 
Boyd, T. H. Henry Drummond. 
(London, 1907.) 
Smith, G. A. Life of Henry Drum- 
mond. (London, 1899.) 


DUNCAN, W. A.—Sre Home Depart- 
MENT. 


DUNKARDS.—SEE 
CHURCH OF THE, 


DUTY AND DISCIPLINE MOVE- 
MENT.—In the spring of 1911 was 
founded the Duty and Discipline Move- 
ment, which now numbers over 4,000 
members. The movement originated in 
the publication of forty Hssays on Duty 
and Discipline and its objects are: (1) 
To combat softness, slackness, indiffer- 
ence and indiscipline, and to stimulate dis- 
cipline and a sense of duty and alertness 
throughout the national life, especially 
during the formative period of home and 
school training. 

(2) To give reasonable support to all 
legitimate authority. 

Rute (1) The Duty and Discipline 
Movement shall deal with principles only 
—not with methods. 

Definition of Rule 1 passed at the An- 
nual Meeting held on June 19, 1914, and 
confirmed at the Second General Meeting, 
held on July 17, 1914: 

“The Duty and Discipline Movement, 
as stated in Rule 1, deals with principles 
and not with methods; but the Rule is not 
intended to preclude the Society, or its 
Members, from discussing disciplinary 
problems, or from giving support to any 
legal method or methods which may con- 
duce towards the maintenance of the prin- 
ciples advocated by the Movement.” 

The Duty and Discipline Movement 
recognizes, therefore, that practical effect 
can only be gwen to principles through 
methods; and supports all legal methods 
which conduce towards discipline, without 
expressing preference for any particular 
method or methods, 

Rute (2) No resolution dealing with 
methods shall be submitted to any meeting 
in connection with the Movement. It is no 


BRETHREN, 








Duty 


part of the work of the movement to advo- 
eate methods by which its objects may be 
attained, but one of its aims is to discover 
the best means of fighting indiscipline, 
and this, it is thought, can most effectively 
be done by utilizing the practical expe- 
rience of earnest men and women who are 
working the problem out in their own 
homes, in schools and in social work and 
life. | 

The office of the movement is in Lon- 
don, whence a large correspondence is car- 
ried on with all parts of the world, from 
Burmah to Colorado, from New Zealand 
to Canada. A wide appeal is made by 
the literature distributed by this organiza- 
tion to all who have any practical concern 
with the training of children and young 
people, or with national administrative 
work. The Hssays, together with an ex- 
cellent set of papers called the Patriot 
Series, will be found very useful to all 
classes of workers and can be had singly 
or in book form on application to the 
secretary. These Hssays have been 
‘written or approved by eminent men and 
‘women belonging to the most diverse 
‘schools of thought—religious, political 
and social. 

Many well-known men and women 
are vice-presidents of the movement, and 
one and all, from their various stand- 


359 


Duty . 


points, emphasize the necessity for the 
retention of those ideals of duty and of 
self-discipline which have played so noble 
a part in the world’s history, and to the 
relaxation of which, in some cases, the 
writers attribute the gravity of the condi- 
tions now prevailing. 

Sub-committees have been formed to 
deal with the different branches of prop- 
aganda work, such as drawing-room and 
public meetings; finance; correspondence 
and work from overseas; journalistic and 
literary work, etc. Speakers are sent to 
meetings of other organizations, either for 
children or adults, for it is realized that 
the personal equation, the degree of ro- 
bustness of character and will is, after all, 
the crux of every social problem. 

By such means it is hoped that before 
long a public opinion may be formed, 
which, while inspired by pity and compas- 
sion where these are due, will yet be wise 
enough to repudiate a false sentimentality 
and to demand, and to produce, only the 
highest possible standards of individual 
and national virility, self-control and 
honor. 

The secretary will be pleased to answer 
inquiries at any time and to send speci- 
mens of literature, etc., on application to 
her at 117, Victoria street, London, S.W. 

IsaBEL Marris. 


E 


EARLY SUNDAY SCHOOLS.—Srs 
First SUNDAY SCHOOLS; SUNDAY SCHOOL 


History, MippLte Prriop oF; SUNDAY’ 


ScHoot Union, AMERICAN; SUNDAY 
ScHooLs IN ENGLAND BEFORE ROBERT 
RAIKES. 


EASTER CONFERENCES AND 
SCHOOL OF METHOD (ENGLAND).— 
Decentralization and specialization are the 
keywords of the modern movement in 
Sunday-school reform. The Sunday 
school of to-day consists of several depart- 
ments rarely meeting together as a whole, 
with exercises in each department highly 
specialized. (See Decentralized S. 8.) 

Arising out of the application of this 
principle and the introduction of Begin- 
ners’, Primary, and Junior departments 
came the demand for conferences of de- 
partmental leaders. The first of these was 
held at Southport at Easter, in the year 
1906. This conference marked an epoch 
in the history of the Sunday-school move- 
ment. Being confined wholly to leaders 
of departments representing the younger 
children’s grades, it was possible carefully 
to specialize the program. Demonstra- 
tions were introduced, complete depart- 
ments consisting of sixty or seventy chil- 
dren were seen at work, and the peculiar 
difficulties of the teacher of the little child 
were considered in detail. Much has been 
made at these conferences of the training 
of the “young teachers,” and demonstra- 
tions in preparation class work became an 
important feature of the conference. 

These Primary workers conferences 
were held, in the year 1906, at Southport; 
in 1907 at Southend-on-sea; in 1908 at 
Scarborough; in 1909 at Bournville; in 
1910 at London; in 1911 at Harrogate; 
in 1912, 1913, and 1914 at Swanwick. All 
the newest methods and most modern ap- 
pliances are to be seen in use. The place 
of nature study in the Sunday school is 
demonstrated each year. Nature rambles 
have been arranged; demonstrations in 


play hours have also been given at the 
recent conferences, while such subjects as 
music, the art of story-telling, the use and 
value of “atmosphere,” etc., etc., have all 
been given prominence. 

The conferences usually commence on 
the Thursday before Easter and continue 
in session until the following Tuesday 
morning. A charge of 30/- is made, 
which pays for board, lodging, and admis- 
sion to all the privileges of the conference. 
The Committee have, in the past, just 
cleared expenses. 

G. HamMItton ARCHIBALD. 


EASTER, OBSERVANCE OF.—The 
term Easter sprang from a festival ob- 
served in honor of Hostre, the Teutonic 
goddess of the spring. It was first used 
when Christianity was introduced among 
the Saxons, Previous to that, the early 
Church had celebrated Pascha in remem- 
brance of the crucifixion of Jesus, and 
later in relation also to his resurrection. 

The spring festival to the goddess oc- 
curred on the Sunday following that four- 
teenth day of the calendar moon which 
falls upon, or next after March twenty- 
first, the vernal equinox. The resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ took place just after 
the Jewish feast of the Passover, held on 
the fourteenth day of the moon. So the 
Council of Nicwa decreed that this Sun- 
day should be the chosen day. It is inter- 
esting to note how the old festival, like 
many another old custom, was given @ 
Christian significance. We see also that 
the earliest associations of HKaster were 
with the renewal of life in nature, which 
now serves as a symbol of a higher truth, 
Here too, is the explanation for Easter 
being sometimes as early as March twenty- 
second, or again as late as April twenty- 
fifth. (See Christian Year.) 

The day kept through the centuries as 
a part of “Holy Week” has tended in re- 
cent years to acquire the characteristics of 
a spring holiday. It remains with the 


360 


Eastern Church 


Church to conserve its religious signifi- 
cance and to educate its children to realize 
the most beautiful meaning of Easter. 

The Roman and Greek churches in their 
native homes have a celebration which is 
religious in its fundamental idea, but is 
an indiscriminate mingling of gala per- 
formance and solemn ceremony in form 
and effect, each very different from the 
other. 

In the Protestant Church in America 
emphasis is laid on one or the other of 
two phases of Easter: upon either the cele- 
bration of the historic resurrection of 
Jesus, or the evidences of the renewal of 
life and the consequent hope of immortal- 
ity. To many the fact that Jesus rose is 
a fundamental part of this hope. Chil- 
dren should be made familar with the 
account in the Gospels of joy after sor- 
row through the grace and power that 
overcame death. '‘T'o give them the bare 
historical facts will be inadequate to their 
needs. But the great truth that 


“There is no death— 
What seems so is transition” 


may well be taught for weeks rather than 
in a single day. Preparations should be 
made for the full appreciation of Easter. 

If a child is directed to note the devel- 
opment of life in a growing seed, the 
changes that take place in so common a 
thing as an acorn or an oat; if he is given 
through story, and through observation, 
the same truth in relation to an egg and 
chicken—the use of both flowers and eggs 
on Easter Sunday will have new meaning 
for him. “Behold I make all things new” 
may then be suggestive of deeper signifi- 
cance. 

Older boys and girls should be given 
the Bible story, and some classic literature 
on the subject of immortality, e. g., 
Wordsworth’s Ode to Immortality, Whit- 
tier’s Hternal Goodness, and Tennyson’s 
Crossing the Bar. And “the glorious 
hymn of the Resurrection,” 1 Corinthians 
15 :20-58 may well be committed to mem- 
By: FREDERICA BEARD. 

EASTERN CHURCH.—SeExr 
OrtTHODOX CHURCH. 


EDINBURGH GRATIS SABBATH- 
SCHOOL SOCIETY.—In Scotland the 
practice of religious worship and instruc- 


GREEK 


361 


Edinburgh Society 


tion in the home circle, was generally fol- 
lowed, notably from the days of John 
Knox (qg. v.) onward. Witness Burns’ 
immortal picture of the home sanctuary in 
his Cotter’s Saturday Night. It was 
not an uncommon thing for the minister 
to postpone a marriage until he was as- 
sured that the would-be husband was 
qualified to be the religious teacher of 
the household. This widespread custom 
naturally explained the comparatively 
slow spread of the Sunday school in Scot- 
land, especially so far as villages and 
smaller towns were concerned, in which 
the influence of church and home was 
dominant. But the religious education of 
the poorer children in the large cities was 
greatly neglected, and when the reports of 
Raikes (g. v.) and his Sunday school 
spread over the border, many earnest souls 
among the religious leaders in the Scottish 
cities saw in the Sunday school a mighty 
instrument of religious training. 

In October, 1796, several members of 
Edinburgh churches held monthly meet- — 
ings of prayer, expressly pleading therein 
for a revival of religion at home and 
abroad. Some of the more eager spirits 
sought to translate prayer into action. 
The neglected condition of the children 
was brought to their notice, and a society 
entitled ‘“Hdinburgh Gratis Sabbath 
School Society” was founded in 179%. 
The Society sought to aid the religious 
teaching of youth by helping in the estab- 
lishment of Sabbath schools in which 
Scriptural instruction should be given to 
the young people of the city. Features 
peculiar to the movement were: (1) That 
the schools were held on Sabbath evening ; 
(2) that the teaching was Scriptural 
rather than denominational; and (3) 
that the teaching should be given with- 
out any fee paid to the teachers. 

In March, 1797, the first school was 
formed at Portsburgh. Success marked 
this pioneer effort, and the movement 
spread so that at the end of the first year 
thirty-four schools were reported, and by 
the end of the second year the number 
had grown to fifty-four. 

Voluntary contributions were made, 
and the money used in erecting and rent- 
ing suitable buildings, providing Bibles 
and catechisms, and furnishing the rooms. 
In 1812 the Society, finding it needful to 
do something for the training of the 


Edinburgh Union 


teachers, issued a Leaflet of Instruction. 
In this interesting document the teacher 
was counseled to divide the classes accord- 
ing to age and capacity, the boys on the 
right hand of the teacher, the girls on the 
left. The methods included the memoriz- 
ing of texts by the pupil, the repeating of 
any sentences they could recollect from ser- 
mons heard, explanation of passages read, 
questioning upon the meaning, singing 
of the Psalms, and repetition of portions 
of the “Assembly’s” Catechism, the older 
pupils being expected to select and repeat 
additional “Scripture Proofs” of the cate- 
chetical teaching. Each Sunday evening 
the class roll was called, attendances 
marked, the portion for the next Sunday’s 
lesson appointed and the pupils dismissed 
“one at a time” to promote orderly clos- 
ing. An attempt was made to unify the 
teaching material, and teachers were ex- 
horted to brevity in prayer and in the 
length of the session. The Society’s notion 
of “brevity,” however, may be judged 
from the exhortation that the whole teach- 
ing session should “not exceed two hours,” 
or two and one half at the very utmost, 
lest the children should be tired! Much 
excellent counsel was given on the general 
relations of teacher and pupil, showing 
that in these early days the leaders under- 
stood the main principles of children’s 
religious education. 

In the 25th report of the Society it is 
stated that 3,170 young people are in 
the schools, and that eighteen schools are 
in the country adjacent to Hdinburgh 
city. From information in contemporary 
religious magazines it is clear that similar 
societies were formed in Glasgow, Aber- 
deen, Paisley and other Scottish cities. 
It is further clear that, although at first 
ecclesiastical authorities bitterly opposed 
the Sabbath-school movement, yet, as the 
result of these voluntary efforts, it spread 
until at length the churches throughout 
Scotland adopted it as an integral part of 
their service for the Kingdom of God. 
(See Scotland, Sabbath Schools in.) 

CarEY BONNER. 


EDINBURGH NATIONAL SABBATH 
SCHOOL UNION.—Srxr Scotnann, San- 
BATH SCHOOLS IN. 


EDITORIAL ASSOCIATION, SUNDAY 
SCHOOL.—This association was organized 


362 


in the city of New York, April 16, 1901; 
it continued in active operation until 1910, 
when its principal functions were assumed 
by the Sunday School Council of Evan- 
gelical Denominations (q. v.), organized 
in Philadelphia in June of that year. All 
of the members of the Editorial Associa- 
tion, except those representing independ- 
ent publication houses, were enlisted in 
the Council, as it was believed that de- 
nominational interests would be sustained 
better through the new organization than 
by the Kditorial Association, and the 
members not wishing to participate in 
two associations having a purpose so sim- 
ilar. However, the Editorial Association 
maintains a nominal existence, subject to 
call by its last chosen officials, in case any 
need of united action should arise. 

The Sunday School Editorial Associa- 


tion was not formed because of opposition — 


to the International Sunday School Asso- 
ciation, or its Lesson Committee; nor 
primarily because of opposition to the 
Uniform Lesson plan; nor with any defi- 
nite purpose to establish an independent 
Graded Lesson system. It was conserv- 
ative in character and in action, recog- 
nizing heartily the importance and value 


of the International Sunday School Asso- 


ciation and its broad and excellent work, 
to which throughout its whole course it 
was uniformally loyal, yet constantly seek- 
ing to improve and strengthen the gen- 
erally existing lesson plans, and to build 
them upon more effective educational prin- 
ciples. 

Its avowed object, as stated in its con- 
stitution, was “to secure a presentation, 
comparison, and study of views as to prin- 
ciples and methods of Sunday-school work, 
and to secure the production of the best 
Sunday-school literature.” Its member- 
ship was limited to “Sunday-school editors 
and publishers of Sunday-school period- 
icals, and others actively and directly par- 


Editorial Association 


ticipating in the preparation of publica-_ 


tions treating of the International lesson 
system.” Its actions were declared to be 
only “recommendatory or advisory, and 
not binding upon the denominational or 
other houses connected with the Associa- 
tion.” 

The “one uniform lesson for the whole 
school” idea has dominated the Sunday- 
school world since 1872; its advocates were 
hostile to any change, though it had been 


| 


Editorial Association 


under almost constant and merciless criti- 
cism; strong vested interests had become 
established ; a spirit of unrest was steadily 
growing which became threatening; pro- 
gressive men and women were becoming 
more and more insistent upon radical 
changes; independent series of lessons 
were being issued and were found to be 
quite acceptable; several conferences with 
the International Lesson Committee and 
lesson writers were held, but without sat- 
isfactory results; then came into being 
the Sunday School Editorial Association, 
its first session including representatives 
of eighteen denominational bodies, and of 
five independent publishers. 

The International Lesson Committee 
was in session, with eight of its members 
present. At a previously arranged hour 
the two bodies came together for con- 
ference. Of all the quite numerous sub- 
jects considered by the Editorial Associa- 
tion, only three were presented to the Les- 
son Committee in a formal but brotherly 
communication, which had been adopted 
unanimously : 

1. That larger Scripture selections 
should be made, with a certain part thereof 
indicated for printing in the “Helps,” the 
shorter portion of ten or twelve verses to 
be counted as the lesson, and that related 
passages be indicated to complete or to 
illustrate the lesson. 

2. Recommending a separate course of 
Bible lessons for Beginners under six 
years of age. 

3. Recommending the preparation of 
a two-years course, at least, topical and 
historical, for Adult or Senior classes, such 
course “not to interfere with the Inter- 
national Uniform plan.” 

Each suggested point received full con- 
sideration, and assurance was cordially 
given that the Lesson Committee would 
act in harmony with the recommendations, 
subject to approval of the International 
Convention. Subcommittees of the Les- 
son Committee were appointed to prepare 
a Beginners’ Course, and a two years’ Ad- 
vanced Course, both to be presented at the 
International Sunday School Convention 
meeting at Denver in 1902, as the Lesson 
Committee had no right to issue either 
course, without the authority of the Con- 
vention. The subjects involved awakened 
wide discussion in Sunday-school journals 
and the religious press. 


363 


Education (Old Testament) 


The International Convention (Denver, 
1902) accepted the plan for Beginners’ 
lessons, but rejected the plan for separate 
Senior or Adult class lessons. The events 
that followed, during the active existence 
of the Editorial Association, were related 
to postal matters, syndication of Sunday- 
school material, special missionary teach- 
ing, nomenclature, improvement of lesson- 
helps and other Sunday-school periodicals, 
general Uniform lessons, teacher training, 
denominational relations in Sunday-school 
work, temperance lessons, and graded les- 
sons. 

In 1904, by unanimous vote, the Asso- 
ciation petitioned the International Les- 
son Committee to make several material 
changes in the course of lessons for 
1906-11, whereby there would not be a 
break in the middle of the calendar year 
by passing from the Old Testament to the 
New, each course to continue through a 
calendar year. Several minor suggestions 
were made, all of which were adopted by 
the Lesson Committee (q. v.), with due 
recognition of the source from which the 
suggestions had come. ‘This is perhaps 
sufficient to show the healthy influence 
exerted by the Editorial Association. 

It was an unwritten law, and the gen- 
eral practice of the Association, to make 
no final delivery except by unanimous 
vote; matters that could not be so decided 
were deferred for the time. Discussions 
were invariably unlimited and as invari- 
ably marked by Christian courtesy and 
forbearance such as true fellowship always 
produces. 

The termination of active efforts by the 
Sunday School Editorial Asociation was 
not due to decadence; it occurred at high 
tide, upon the appearance of another and 
quite similar organization with a larger 
scope than could be possible under the 
then existing conditions, and was subject 
to call in any exigency that might possibly 
arise. 

C. R. BuacKatt. 


EDUCATION IN OLD TESTAMENT 
TIMES. From the earliest times the He- 
brews considered the education and train- 
ing of the common people as of supreme 
importance. The spirit of their education 
was intensely religious; the ‘distinction 
between “sacred” and “secular,” which 
has proved a serious detriment to educa- 


Education (Old Testament) 


tion in modern times, did not exist. “The 
fear of Jehovah (1. e., true piety) is the 
beginning (or chief part) of knowledge,” 
says a wise man (Prov. 1:7), to which a 
later sage adds that it is also its fullness 
and crown (Kcclus, 1:16, 18). The arm 
of all education was practical, rather than 
theoretical; not learning, but doing, was 
considered the chief thing (Sayings of 
the Fathers 1:18); but it always main- 
tained a proper balance between theory 
and practice, seeking to combine “instruc- 


tion in the positive truths of the ances- 


tral faith with preparation for the prac- 
tical duties of life” (cf. Josephus, con. 
ADP EL LGT): 

In the history of Hebrew or Jewish edu- 
cation during Old Testament times, three 
periods may be distinguished: I. From 
Moses (c. 1200 B. C.) to Josiah; IL. 
From the Reform of Josiah (621 B. C.) 
to Ezra; III. From the arrival of Ezra in 
Jerusalem (c. 458 B. C.) to the Macca- 
bean Age (c. 160 B. C.) 

I. From Moses to Josiah. Moses, whose 
activity marks the beginning of Hebrew 
history, has been called “the greatest of 
schoolmasters.” He was such only in the 
sense that he inaugurated movements 
which made popular instruction necessary 
and furnished much of the material which 
later generations expanded and used as 
the basis of instruction. Fundamentally 
Moses did two things: (1) He organized 
a national unity. (2) He proclaimed a 
religion of sufficient power and vitality to 
bind together the various elements which 
constituted the new nation. The watch- 
word of this religion was: Jehovah the 
God of Israel, Israel the people of Je- 
hovah. In order to impress this central 
truth upon the people and maintain its 
effectiveness, the great leader furnished 
institutions which might serve as object 
lessons, as means of grace, as vehicles of 
communion with the newly proclaimed 
God, and regulations governing the rela- 
tion of the people to their God and to one 
another. Thus, force of circumstances 
made Moses the founder of the moral, reli- 
gious, social, and civil laws and institu- 
tions of the Hebrews. 

At first all this material was the pos- 
session of the great leader, his associates, 
and his immediate successors. The task 
was to make it the property of the com- 
mon people, through patient, persistent 


364 


Education (Old Testament) 


instruction in the things taught by Moses, 
expanded and often reformulated in sub- 
sequent generations. This was done 
chiefly by three classes of religious work- 
ers: the prophets, the priests, and the 
wise men. In the beginning the three 
officers were not fully differentiated, but 
Jer. 18:18 shows that during the period 
under discussion these various classes be- 
came clearly defined, each making its own 
specific contribution to the religious and 
ethical training of the people. The 
prophet sought to impress upon his’ less 
enlightened contemporaries his sublime 
conception of the character of Jehovah 


‘ and of the divine ideals of righteousness, 


ordinarily by direct appeal to heart and 
conscience, in which he resembles the 
modern preacher. The wise man also 
desired to make the divine will known to 
others, but unlike the prophet and lke 
the modern religious teacher, he addressed 
himself primarily to the intellect, seek- 
ing to remove intellectual difficulties or 
to present the reasonableness of his cause, 
convinced that the appeal to common sense 
would make an impression the result of 
which might be seen in transformed con- 
duct. 


the proper performance of ceremonial acts 


and exercises and to interpret their moral 


and spiritual significance. It was also 
his duty to teach the people the Law of 
Jehovah, consisting not only of cere- 


monial regulations, but also of moral, 


social, and judicial precepts and direc- 
tions. . 

In the beginning, the teaching was by 
word of mouth. But with the general 
advance of culture, especially from the 
time of David and Solomon on, reading 
and writing became more common. Soon 
these teachers took advantage of the new 
opportunities of reaching a larger circle: 
the fiery orations of the prophets were put 
into writing and distributed; the tradi+ 
tions of the past, accompanied by inter- 
pretations of their religious significance, 
assumed literary form; while the laws of 
the priests and sayings of the wise men all 
were put into more permanent form; as a 
result of which change moral and reli- 
gious education could be made more 
formal and systematic. 

No provision seems to have been made 
for the public wstruction of the young. 


One of the educative functions of 
the priest was to instruct the people in 


Education (Old Testament) 


The word “school” occurs neither in the 
Old Testament nor in the Apocrypha, 
and only once in the New Testament, and 
there not with reference to a Jewish in- 
stitution (Acts 19:9). Thus the educa- 
tion of children was purely a domestic 
and family concern. Boys accompanied 
their fathers to their daily labors in the 
field or the workshop, girls were trained 
by their mothers in the domestic arts, 
cooking, weaving, the making of gar- 
Merits, etc. (Prov. 31:12, 21, 22.) 
Music, dancing, and song seem to have 
been practiced. Undoubtedly all this 


instruction was given in a religious spirit,” 


but in addition, parents who considered 
the fear of God the beginning of wisdom 
would give more direct religious instruc- 
tion concerning Jehovah and his provi- 
dence over the people, the honoring of par- 
ents and elders (Exod. 20:12; 21:15, 
17; Prov. 1:7; 19: 26; 20: 20), the sanc- 
tity of family life, the wonderful traditions 
of the past. At a later time the simple 
laws, practical sayings of the wise men 
(Prov. 1:1-5), and the songs of the poets 
(2 Sam. 1:17) all permeated by a reli- 
gious atmosphere, would be added. (See 
Jews, Religious Education among the.) 

_ Reading and writing (Judg. 8:14) were 
probably the possession of only the few, 
but with the general advance in culture, 
Hebrew children would be introduced 
more universally to the study of these and 
allied subjects, like arithmetic, geography, 
and history. It does not follow, however, 
that this led to the establishment of 
schools in the modern sense of that term. 
The only change was in the case of chil- 
dren of the aristocracy, who were placed 
in the care of professional tutors (2 
Kings 10:1, 5). To ‘what extent the 
“newer” education spread among the com- 
mon people it is not possible to state. 
“Yet such facts as that Amos and Micah 
among the literary prophets belonged to 
the ranks of the people; that Mesha, King 
of Moab, could count for readers for the 
stele commemorating his victories, that 
the workmen who excavated the tunnel 
from the Virgin’s spring to the Pool of 
Siloam carved in the rock the manner of 
their work—these facts taken along with 
more than one passage of Isaiah (8:1; 
10:19, ‘a child may write them, cf. 
29:11, 12, the distinction between the lit- 
erate and the illiterate) should make us 


365 


Education (Old Testament) 


pause before drawing the line of illiteracy 
too high in the social scale.” 

There has been in the past much mis- 
conception concerning the place of the 
so-called schools of the prophets (an ex- 
pression without Scriptural authority) in 
the educational system of the Hebrews. 
Laurie, for example, states (An Historical 
Survey of Pre-Christian Education, p. 
86) that the schools of the prophets “were 
somewhat in the nature of theological 
institutions and were presided over by a 
senior member formally elected. Music 
and sacred poetry were studied as well as 
the profounder aspects of theology.” 
And again, “the prophetic studies apart 
from theology were . . music and 
verse, mathematics and Chaldean astron- 
omy, as well as the law and its spiritual 
interpretation.” These claims find no 
support in the Old Testament: Kennedy 
(article on “Education” in Hastings’ 
Dictionary of the Bible) is nearer the 
truth when he says: “All that the Scrip- 
ture narrative warrants us in holding is | 
that in a few centers, such as Bethel (2 
Kings 2:3), Jericho (2 Kings 2:5), and 
Gilgal (2 Kings 4:38), men of prophetic 
spirit formed associations or brotherhoods 
(hence the name, ‘sons of the prophets’) 
for the purpose of stimulating their devo- 
tion to Jehovah through the common life 
of the brotherhood. Hdification, not edu- 
cation, was the matin purpose of these so- 
called ‘schools’ This does not mean, 
however, that informally and incidentally 
the younger members did not learn from 
their elders; just as the younger priests 
would be instructed by their seniors at 
the various sanctuaries. 

II. From Josiah to Ezra. In 621 B. C., 
the Book of the Law, generally identified 
with the Book of Deuteronomy in its 
original form, was established by Josiah 
as supreme. This significant act marks 
an epoch in the religious history of Israel, 
for it inaugurated the movement which 
reached its culmination in later Judaism. 
It had equally far-reaching consequences 
in the realm of popular education, for 


“through the emphasis which the Deuter- 


onomic law givers placed upon the instruc- 
tion of the children by their parents, they 
laid the foundation for the later educa- 
tional system, which. was the strength 
and glory of Judaism.” (Kent, Jsrael’s 
Laws and Legal Precedents, p. 92). 


Education (Old Testament) 


Under the influence of the Deuteronomic 
reform movement, attempts were made to 
enforce upon every Israelite the necessity 
of “instilling right religion and morality 
into his children and household” (Cheyne, 
Jewish Religious Life after the EHztle, 
p. 180). This ideal finds expression in 
Gen. 18:19, “For I have known him 
[Abraham], to the end that he may com- 
mand his children:and his household after 
him, that they may keep the way of Je- 
hovah to do righteousness and justice.” 
The statutes and ordinances with which 
the parents were familiar, and the wonder- 
ful things which they had seen, they were 
commanded to teach to their children and 
even their children’s children. (Deut. 
4:9; 32:7, 8, 46.) The great truths of 
their religion were to be kept constantly 
before the children. (Deut. 6:7; 11:19.) 
No changes seem to have been introduced 
in the teaching of the “secular” branches, 
except as the further advance in civiliza- 
tion would lead a growing number of par- 
ents to open the wider fields of learning to 
their children. 

The moral and religious education of 
the adults was not neglected. Undoubt- 
edly the prophets, priests, and wise men 
continued their efforts to instruct the 
people in the will of their God. But addi- 
tional educational opportunities were 
offered. The words of the law were to be 
inscribed upon large stones, by the high- 
way, where all might read (Deut. 27 :1-8) ; 
the ruler was to study the law all the 
days of his life (Deut. 17:19) ; and among 
the closing words of the book is the exhor- 
tation that every seven years the law be 
read in the presence of the people, men, 
women, and children (Deut. 31:9-13). 

III. From Ezra to the Maccabees. The 
coming of Ezra to Jerusalem (c. 458 
B. C.) marks another important advance 
step in the educational history of the 
Jews. The exilic and early post-exilic 
period was a time of intense moral, spir- 
itual, and intellectual interest, which 
found its chief expression in extensive lit- 
erary activity. The traditions of the past 
were rewritten; the prophetic utterances 
were collected. and edited; and the legal 
system was adapted to present needs; so 
that less than a century after the return 
from Exile (537 B. C.) the Jewish com- 
munity was in possession of a multitude 
of writings which, even in the absence of 


066 


Education (Old Testament) 


regular schools, could be used by the reli- 
gious leaders for the instruction of the 
common people. The opportunity thus 
offered was seized by Ezra and his co- 
workers. 

Ezra was “a ready scribe in the law” 
(Ezra 7:6), who “had set his heart to seek 
the law of Jehovah and to do it, and to 
teach in Israel statutes and ordinances” 
(Ezra 7:10). He succeeded in establish- 
ing the law as the regulating norm and 
final authority in every relation of life. 
The first reading of the law created a pro- 
found impression (Neh. 8-10), but if the 
influence of the book was to be maintained, 
it must be circulated and the people must 
be made to know its contents. This made 
the office of the teacher, already alluded 
to in connection with the first reading of 
the law (Neh. 8:7, 9), one of supreme 
importance. Wellhausen scarcely over- 
emphasizes the educational significance 
of this age when he writes: “The Bible 
became the spelling book, the community 
a school, religion an affair of teaching 
and learning. Piety and education were 
inseparable; whoever could not read was 
no true Jew. We may say that in this 
way were created the beginnings of popu- 
lar education.” (Isr. & Jiid. Gesch. 4th 
ed. p. 202.) 

The synagogue where the religious in- 
struction—that is, instruction in the law 
and, subsequently, also in other portions 
of the sacred writings—was given, was 
originally not a place of worship, but a 
teaching institution (so Philo and the 
N. T.). In the words of Schuerer (His- 
tory of Jewish People, II, p. 54): “The 
main object of the Sabbath day assem- 
blages in the synagogue was not public 
worship in its stricter sense—that is, not 
devotion—but religious instruction.” The 
origin of the institution is not quite clear. 
Whether Ezra was its founder, as tradi- 
tion claims, or not, its beginnings must 
be placed at least as early as his age. In 
a short time it spread throughout all the 
towns and villages of Palestine, where it 
played an important part in the religious 
and educational life of the people. 

The public instruction in the synagogue 
did not release parents from their respon- 
sibility. It remained the duty of father 
and mother to instruct their children in 
the law and the principles of right liv- 
ing. Again and again children are urged 


Education (Old Testament) 


to obey the commandments and observe 
the instruction of their parents. (Prov. 
6:20, 23; cf. 2 Tim. 1:5.) Nevertheless, 
it was inevitable that the rise of a public 
educational institution should soon pro- 
duce a class of professional teachers—the 
scribes. In a sense the prophets, priests, 
and wise men, who did important educa- 
tional work even during the pre-exilic 
period, may be called professional teach- 
ers. However, during the post-exilic 
period, the voice of living prophecy ceased, 
while the priest confined himself more 
closely to his priestly duties, though the 
earlier scribes seem to have come from 
the ranks of the priests and Levites. 
(Neh. 8:7, 9.) 

The teaching activity of the wise men 
continued; much of the didactic wisdom 
literature arose during the post-exilic age. 
But now the scribes came to be in a special 
sense the teachers of the people—wholly 
apart from though not necessarily opposed 
to the sacrificial priesthood—and they 
continued to exercise a far-reaching in- 
fluence during the entire subsequent Jew- 
ish history. As is the case with the syn- 
agogue, the origin and early history of 
the scribes cannot be traced. However, 
by the time of the Chronicler, the latter 
part of the fourth century B. C., they 
had become preéminently the learner and 
teacher class, and were already organized 
into families or guilds (1 Chron. 2:55) ; 
and in the end they absorbed the older 
movement of the wise men, so that by the 
time of Jesus ben Sirach (soon after 200 
B. C.) the two were practically indis- 
tinguishable; Jesus ben Sirach, the last 
of the great wise men, was also a scribe. 

The teaching of the scribes for the com- 
mon people was done largely in connec- 
tion with the synagogue services, though 
the privilege of reading and teaching in 
the synagogue was by no means limited to 
the scribes. For private instruction, they 
gathered their disciples in other places. 
From Proverbs 1:20, 21, one may infer 
that the city gates or the adjacent broad 
places were used as meeting places of 
teachers and pupils. At a later time, 
quarters seem to have been set apart for 
them in the témple precincts (Josephus, 
Ant. XII, 3:3), and other buildings may 
have been devoted to teaching purposes. 
However, most of the instruction seems 
to have been given in private houses. 


367 


Education (Old Testament) 


“My son,” says Jesus ben Sirach, “if thou 
seest a man of understanding, get thee 
betime unto him, and let thy foot wear 


out the steps of his doors.” (Ecclus. 
6 :36.) 
The instruction was oral. The great 


aim was to impress the truth indelibly 
upon the memory, so that the pupil could 
reproduce in identical terms what was 
taught. It is significant that in later 
Hebrew the ideas “to teach,” and “to 
learn” are expressed by a word which 
means literally, “to repeat.” From the 
pupils in these schools the ranks of the 
scribes were recruited; but the priesthood 
and higher laity undoubtedly shared the 
educational privileges, while the great 
mass of children were still dependent upon 
home teaching. ‘The instruction in the 
schools of the scribes presupposed prior 
elementary training in reading, writing, 
and other branches of learning, but this 
must have been, largely at least, domestic, 
for there is no evidence of the existence 
of elementary schools prior to the Greek 
period, and they did not become numer- 
ous until during the first pre-Christian 
century, chiefly through the efforts of 
Simon Ben Shetah, a president of the 
Sanhedrin (c. 75 B. C.). 

The Greek conquest of Western Asia by 
Alexander (333-332 B. C.) was followed 
by the spread of Greek ideas and customs 
throughout Palestine and adjacent coun- 
tries, and exerted a decided influence upon 
Jewish educational life. Naturally the 
Jews in Palestine were affected less by 
these new forces than the Jews of the dis- 
persion, especially those who had settled 
in the newly founded city of Alexandria 
in Egypt. Nevertheless, the Maccabean 
uprising furnishes abundant evidence that 
Palestine and even Jerusalem did not 
remain untouched by Hellenism. It is 
not improbable that along with other 
ideas, Greek educational methods found 
a foothold in Palestine during the third 
century B. C. (1 Mac. 1:14; 2 Mace. 
4:9, 12). In general, the Greek conquest 
resulted in popularizing education (1 
Mac. 1:57), and in emphasizing some of 
the “secular” elements which received less 
attention during the earlier periods. 
Concerning this later age, the judgment 
of Laurie (p. 92) is probably correct: 
“We may fairly conclude that for about 
four centuries before Christ, elementary 


Education of the Will 


instruction was generally accessible 
through individual public teaching or 
parental teaching, and that clever and 
energetic boys could thus raise themselves 
above the humbler ranks of poverty. Pop- 
ular education was, however, education by 
the synagogue, which brought home to 
every small community of Jews the cen- 
tral idea of their faith and the system of 
morality and law based upon it.” 
F. C. EIsELEN. 
References: 

Cheyne, T. K. and Black, J. S., 
editors. Encyclopedia Biblica. (New 
York, 1899-1903.) 

Hastings, James. Dictionary of the 
Bible. Education. (New York, 1909.) 

Laurie, 8S. S. Historical Survey of 
Pre-Christian Education. (London, 
1895.) 

Schuerer, Emil. History of the Jew- 
ish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, 


Div. II, v. I, Sec. 25.5 vy. (Edinburgh, 
1885-90.) 

Singer, Isador, editor. The Jewish 
Encyclopedia. 
EDUCATION OF THE WILL.—Serxz 


WILL, EDUCATION OF THE. 


EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES OF THE 
CHURCH, CORRELATION OF THE.— 
By the correlation of the educational 
agencies of the church is meant the adop- 
tion of a plan adequate to surround every 
boy and girl in the parish with all pos- 
sible helpful influences and so harmoni- 
ous in all its parts that there shall be no 
overlapping or wumnnecessary endeavor. 
The natural center of this correlation is 
the Sunday school, in which are brought 
together for the longest continuous time 
the largest number of the young people of 
the church. The ideal for correlation is 
that the church shall furnish, or see that 
there is furnished, for all its children 
wholesome influences sufficient to en- 
sure their physical, mental, social, and 
religious welfare. 

The church should not divorce instruc- 
tion from expression. It should so or- 
ganize the religious training of its youth 
that they are trained in right conduct in 
order that they may “know the doctrine” 
by doing Christ’s will. Habits of reli- 
gious expression are formed exactly as 
other habits are established, and the 


368 


Educational Agencies 


church should give religion the benefit of 
all the research in psychology and peda- 
gogy which is so rapidly improving the 
methods of the public schools. P 

The arguments which have secured for 
the church graded Sunday-school cur- 
ricula will also make clear the necessity 
for graded worship and graded expression. 
A child must be taught to live a full life 
in the world as he knows it, and his reli- 
gious life should increase with his ex- 
panding horizon. As one church has ex- 
pressed it, “The Church School” sets 
forth a program of graded expression as 
follows: “The characteristic environment 
of the Primary child is the home; of 
the Junior child, the play circle and the 
school; of the Intermediate youth, enter- 
ing upon the larger world, the church as 
a parish and the city; of the Senior, the 
country and the world. ach of these 
should be studied with a view to discov- 
ering what each environment offers in the 
way of opportunity for service.” 

Often this correlation should be made 
not only in respect to the activities within 
a particular church, but also between its 
own activity and the activities of a neigh- 
boring institution, such as a sister church, 
the Y. M. C. A., the public library, or the 
public playground. The result to be de- 
sired by the correlation of agencies may 
be stated in definite terms, differing ac- 
cording to local needs and appliances. A 
definite statement that would be applic- 
able to many churches would be that there 
ought to be a Sunday-school class, a plan 
for church attendance, a social club, or 
a gymnasium class, a summer camp, and 
a definite channel for service for every — 
boy and girl in the Sunday school between 
eight years of age and maturity. No 
doubt every pastor has a plan, but it 
would be of advantage to have it more 
clearly outlined, and to have the constitu- 
ent organizations consciously work in 
accordance with it. 

If religious expression is part of the 
process of religious teaching it must 
follow that the organizations that have 
sprung up as agencies for the expression 
of religious life, must be correlated with 
the church school and that one board of 
officers administer both parts of the edu- 
cational program. 

I. The Correlating Committee. The 
correlating committee should consist of a 


Educational Agencies 


committee of three, five, or seven mem- 
bers, to be known as the Hducational 
Committee of the Church. The Educa- 
tional Committee should be one of the 
regular standing committees of the 
Church Board, session, or other central 
executive body in the local church. It 
should sustain the same relationship to 
the Sunday school that a school board 
sustains toa system of public schools. 
(See Committee on Religious Education.) 

The Executwe Officer. 'The executive 
officer of the Educational Committee 
should be a superintendent, or, if possible 
a director of religious education (gq. v.) 
who is a trained educational expert for 
this work. This officer would superin- 
tend the Sunday school, train the teachers, 
and have general direction of all educa- 
tional organizations of the church. 


Sunday School Church Social 
Grade Opportunity Opportunity 
Beginners..... 
Primary....... Socials. 
IOE 3 ok 65:5 > Church Girl Scouts. 
Attendance 
League. 
Intermediate... Church Knights of 
Attendance King Arthur. 
League. King’s 
Pacers 
BAIOE ies a « Confirmation Knights of 
Classes for King Arthur. 
Boys and for ‘The Girls’ 
Girls. Club. 
Pews for Boys’ Christian 
Classes. Endeavor. 


The Departmental Programs. ‘The 
general program of all departments of 
the church school (or “Sunday school”) 
should consist of three parts, as follows: 

1. Period of real and reverent worship, 
suited to the age, experience, and needs of 
the department. 

2. Period of instruction. This is the 

regular class period. Graded Lessons will 
suit the subject matter to the needs of the 
students. 
_ 38, Period of training for and in Chris- 
tian service. It is desirable that these 
three periods be united under one admin- 
istration. 

The third period of this program will 


369 


Educational Agencies 


take the place of the Junior, Intermediate, 
and Senior societies now meeting under 
separate mid-week meetings of the 
separate management. There may be 
classes for various purposes, but the de- 
partment as a whole will seldom need to 
call an extra assembly. 

This arrangement secures the attend- 
ance of all who are members of the Sun- 
day school upon the young people’s ex- 
pressional services. It secures a correla- 
tion of instruction and expression; and 
finally, it secures a unity of supervision 
that prevents the overlapping of agencies. 
The practicability and usefulness of 
such correlation may be more manifest 
by indicating upon a chart the relation- 
ships which are actually being followed 
out in one church. (Chart furnished by 
W. B. Forbush, Ph.D.) 


Gymnasium Camp Service 
Play-hour. Benevolent. 
Boys’ I. Benevolent. 
Girls’ I. 
Boys’ IT. Benevolent. 
Boys’ ITI. 
Girls’ II. 
Boys’ IV. Boys’ Camp I. Messenger 
Boys’ V. Girls’ Camp I. Service. 
Club Work. 
Junior Choir. 
Young Boys’ Camp II. Club Work. 
Men I Girls’ Camp II. Gym. Leaders. 
Young S. 8. Teachers. 
Women I. C. E. Work. 
Ushers. 


Senior Choir. 


The chart requires some explanation. 
Note that everything is done by grades. 
The gymnasium and the camps are graded 
to parallel departments and groups of 
classes in the Sunday school. The social 
clubs also follow the main lines of child 
development. The opportunities of serv- 
ice grow more varied with the increasing 
age, ability and freedom of the young 
people. In the column devoted to 
“Church Opportunity” the church at- 
tendance leagues precede the confirma- 
tion classes and the setting apart of spe- 
cial pews for special classes. There is 
some peril in encouraging young people 
to become church members before they 


Educational Agencies 


have formed the habit of church attend- 
ance. The junior choir and a weekly 
story-sermon help at this point. Later, 
the habit having been formed, the regular 
sermon and the senior choir are helpful 
agencies. The confirmation classes are 
offered only to church attendants. 

When a student is promoted from one 
department of the school to another, he 
passes by virtue of that promotion into 
all the phases of the work of the new de- 
partment. At the close of the Senior 
course the school should make it a part 
of its business to see that each stu- 
dent is actively identified with some 
of the adult organizations of the church, 
and the church receiving them should 
immediately set them to work and keep 
them at work. Horne has aptly re- 
marked: “The idle convert is in graver 
danger than the unconverted idle.” The 
launching of this program should be pre- 
ceded by an educational campaign which 
must include the whole church. The 
changes it suggests will then be indorsed 
by an intelligent public sentiment. The 
Educational Committee should go about 
its work tactfully, with no undue show 
of authority, and at all times should be 
tolerant when dealing with established 
customs. : 

II. Agencies for Teacher Training. 
The church should plan for the future 
of its school; it should train teachers not 
only for to-day but for- to-morrow. (See 
Teacher Training.) In the training of 
teachers there should be hours of general 
preparation followed by careful special- 
ization for work in the different depart- 
ments. Correspondence courses should be 
encouraged where class work is not pos- 
sible. (See Biblical Instruction by Cor- 
respondence. ) 

The church should train leaders as well 
as teachers, and for this purpose it should 
provide a training class or classes in 
which officers are given short courses of 
study to prepare them for their specific 
duties. (See Leadership, Training for.) 
Superintendents, assistant superintend- 
ents, heads of departments, secretaries, 
librarians, the chairmen of important 
committees also—such as missions, tem- 
perance, evangelism—should receive spe- 
cial training. This training should be 
given so far as possible in the local school. 
Part of the course would be common to all 


370 


Educational Agencies 


and could be studied in a large class and 
the specialization followed in smaller 
groups. Where the church has access to 
a City Training School (gq. v.) and Insti- 
tutes or institutions of learning offering 
special courses, it should work in co- 
operation with them for the advanced 
training of its own leaders. The Educa- 
tional Committee and officers should make 
a careful selection among its young people 
of the future leaders and teachers. Fre- 
quent opportunity should be offered for 
conversation regarding life problems of 
leadership and these should lead directly 
into actual service. The object of train- 
ing should be to fit each young person to 
become an intelligent and skilled worker 
in some activity of the Kingdom under 
the direction of the church. (See Voca- 
tion Day in the 8. S.; Vocational Instruc- 
tion.) 

III. The Local Church and the Educa- 
tional Institutions. The local church 
looks to the college man or woman for 
leadership. It expects those who come 
from its denominational institutions to be 
prepared as Bible teachers, leaders of 
boys’ and girls’ work and of athletic ac- 
tivities, or to assume places as superin- 
tendents and officers. It has a right to 
expect courses in religious education to be 
available at college and of such strong and 
commanding interest that students will 
catch a vision of the dignity of religious 
service and return to the home church 
equipped and willing to render the desired — 
service. . 

The Bible and missionary training 
schools are rendering a great service, but 
the church has a right to expect that these 
schools consider the problem of developing © 
a normal life and growth as well as the - 
problem of salvage and rescue for such 
lives as have been misspent. Such schools 
should enlarge their scope and train for 
teaching in the home churches according 
to approved educational principles. The 
call is not for a smaller number of mis- 
sionaries and settlement workers, but for 
a larger number of trained workers for 
the harvest fields at home. (See Reli- 
gious Training Schools.) 

The churches, also, feel themselves 
vitally related to the theological semi- 
naries, They are placing a new interpreta- 
tion upon the teaching function of the 
minister and they expect him to come 


Educational Function 


from the seminary prepared not only for 
the pulpit, but for the educational leader- 
ship of the church. (See Pastor and the 
S. 8.) The unity of teaching agencies in 
the local church reaches out in order to 
find support in the colleges, training 
schools, seminaries, and great institutions 
of the church. 

An intimate relation and clear under- 
standing between general organizations, 
the local boards of public education, and 
the committees on religious education in 
the local church is essential to the corre- 
lation of work in the churches. The gen- 
eral policies and practical workings of 
these various organizations will be most 
effective as they serve with unified pur- 
pose a closely articulated system of reli- 
gious education. 

W. S. AtHEarn, W. B. ForBusH, AND 
FRANKLIN McELrFREsH. 


EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE 
SUNDAY SCHOOL.—Several factors have 
combined during the last quarter century 
to make clear to what extent the Sunday 
school may and ought to be a real educa- 
tional institution. Among these are: the 
increase of confidence among educators in 
the value of the study of the child mind 
and the development of that mind, as con- 
ditioning every approach made to the 
child itself; the improvement in the meth- 
ods in the common schools due to this 
fact; the growing understanding that we 
cannot educate the child at any point 
without some influence on all his nature; 
the growing understanding that people 
may be trained in respect to morals and 
religion just as in any other qualities, 
and that the morals and religion resulting 
from such training are just as vital as 
any that can come from appeal to more 
primitive emotions; the knowledge that 
growth in religion in the child follows a 
certain, determinable course as does 
growth of body and mind; the fact that 
there is very much in common between the 
ordinary educational processes and the 
securing of right moral and religious 
natures; and, finally, that the home and 
common schools are not filling their func- 
tion of securing righteous purposes and 
behavior on the part of youth. (See 
Home, The, as an Agency in Religious 
Education; Psychology, Child.) 

This conviction that the Sunday school 


371 


Educational Function 


has a vitally educational function is 
merely a part of the more general one— 
that all] human qualities, desirable or un- 
desirable, are educable and that it is the 
duty of society to strengthen the right 
qualities and eradicate the undesirable 
ones in every possible way. 

The most obvious shortcoming of the 
general system of education at present is 
in respect to the moral and religious as- 
pects of character. This weakness is quite 
frankly recognized by the most alert of 
secular educators, and is admitted with 
increasing alarm. These men realize that 
the real purpose of all education is right 
character, and admit that the schools need 
the help of other institutions to secure it. 

It must be recognized at the outset that 
there is some correlation between knowl- 
edge and righteousness. This means that 
people who have knowledge are not so 
hable to wrong-doing as are those who 
are ignorant. The correlation is not high 
enough, however, to justify depending on 
knowledge alone, for this does not lead 
with sufficient certainty to righteous char- 
acter, to sane choices, and to wholesome 
conduct. Therefore the knowledge and 
efficiency sought by the schools are im- 
portant even in moral and religious educa- 
tion, but something else must be done 
which the common schools have not found 
a way todo. (See Organization, S. 8.) 

This is just the point at which the Sun- 
day school is in a position to render its 
invaluable service to humanity. Its task 
is to secure right motives and ideals, and 
fuse them with this knowledge and effi- 
ciency secured through general educa- 
tion—in a word to increase the correlation 
between knowledge and right choices by 
adding right purposes. 

In order to do this the Sunday school 
ought to fit its work just as closely as pos- 
sible to that of the schools. We may 
profit greatly by the methods which have 
been successfully used in general edu- 
cation, in so far as we carry them over 
naturally and appropriately into the field 
of character and conduct. *There should 
be a greatly increased community of pur- 
pose and exchange of experience between 
Sunday school and other teachers just be- 
cause they are doing complementary work 
with the same children. Ways should be 
found to strengthen the moral and reli- 
gious purposes of the general teacher and 


Educational Function 


the pedagogical appreciation of the Sun- 
day-school teacher. There ought to be 
joint meetings and discussions, leading 
to the harmonizing of plans of these two 
groups of teachers for the complete edu- 
cation of the children. In such a scheme 
of complete, all-round education the Sun- 
day school, if it improves its opportunity, 
may come to have a unique place—a more 
extended place than its advocates have 
ever imagined. It will build on what is 
done in the home and school, but it will 
consciously add to these sound culture in 
respect to moral responsibility, in respect 
to the spiritual nature and its function, 
in respect to conscience,'and in respect to 
personal and social religion and its expres- 
sion in practice. 


~ There is no antithesis between the edu- 


cational function of the Sunday school 
and any other of its functions. There has 
been some disposition to put education 
and evangelism into opposition. As a 
matter of fact the evangelistic persuasion 
of personality is more sure and more 
meaningful if it has been preceded by 
equally evangelistic education of the emo- 
tions, of knowledge, of will, and of con- 
duct. The evangelistic appeal is futile 
unless it be followed up with education of 
the whole personality. An educated 
choice of Christ as Saviour is more mean- 
ingful than a spontaneous or haphazard 
one. It has been too much felt that edu- 
cation relates only to knowledge and rea- 
son. The emotions and desires are quite 
as subject to education and as much in 
need of it as is the intellect. What we 
really need is that all our education shall 
be persuasive and evangelistic; and that 
all our evangelism shall be based on the 
whole structure and nature, rather than 
on a mere part of personality—that is, 
shall be educative. Evangelism which is 
not educative in its effects darkens the 
life rather than illumines it. (See 
Evangelism through Education.) 

When we speak of education in respect 
to morals and religion, we imply at once 
that we are naturally endowed with moral 
and religious qualities—that these qual- 
ities do not come from without, but are as 
native to us as our body or mind. If 
these spiritual qualities are natural, they 
are subject to growth and unfolding under 
the proper nurture just as the body and 
mind are. Growth and unfolding, how- 


372 


Educational Function 


ever, imply time. It has been one of the ‘ . 


most persistent of the fallacies of religious 
thinking, that the religious and spirit- 


ual nature of man arises and flowers by — 


some artificial and lawless device which 
allows the neglect of the elements of 
growth and time. ‘This conception has 
wrought havoc to the spiritual life of 
many rightwishing people. Others, trust- 


ing to some striking emotional experience, — 


have dwarfed the life by later neglect. 


Many, feeling that the religious life is © 


impossible without such an experience, 


have ignored their natural spiritual quali- 
ties and have allowed them to be eclipsed 
A spiritual birth is ~ 


by those less lofty. 
not the proof and measure of spiritual life; 
a growing spiritual and religious nature 
is the evidence of the spiritual birth. 


If these things are true it becomes at : 


once necessary and possible to examine and 


determine what traits, or characteristics, 
or elements enter into the moral and reli- 
While we cannot 


gious nature of man. 
educate quality without influencing all, it 


is not safe to try to educate personality as — 4 


a vague and lofty unity—trusting that 


all proper special qualities will be de- ¥ 
veloped adequately as a by-product of the 
It is too complex for 


general process. 
that; therefore, conscious attention must 


be given to many separate aspects of it 4 


all the time. 
The following classes of qualities have 
a large place in the structure of human 


personality, including the spiritual: our 
desires and emotions; our experience and ~ 
habits; our knowledge and ideas; our 


standards and ideals; our choices and 
conduct. 
to education. 


exact; they may come to encourage right- 
eousness or to inhibit it. Whatever their 
fate they make up our natures. This is 


equally true of the religious nature. 2 
These qualities make us what we are, and — 


there is no regeneration without regen- 
erating them. 

It was stated above that there is a cor- 
relation between information: and right- 
eousness. ‘This is also true of the other 


groups of qualities. There is still greater 4 


correlation between desires and conduct}; 
between right habits and standards and 


conduct; between purpose and conduct. 


Because of this it at once becomes the 





All of these traits are subject | 
They may grow or dimin- — 
ish; they may become more gross or more ~ 








Educational Function 


duty of teachers of character to find the 
best ways to strengthen and develop every 
right desire and impulse and to weaken 
the wrong ones; to increase helpful knowl- 
edge; to form sound habits of thinking, 
of choosing, and of acting at the expense 
of low habits; to erect lofty standards 
and ideals of life instead of mean ones. 
The Sunday-school teacher may feel as- 


- sured when he is doing these things that 
he is educating the moral and religious 
life. 


It must not be forgotten that this con- 
scious education of character is greatly 
strengthened by any strong, suitable, emo- 
tional appeals that may secure a deep 
internal purpose. A wholesome general 
choice or purpose makes more safe every 
individual decision. It is the united testi- 
mony of many men that this transformed 
purpose may be had by the vision of Jesus 
Christ and a cordial acceptance of him as 
leader and Saviour; and that desires, 
habits, ideals, and choices may be righted 
and strengthened by this purpose. There 
is nothing in the idea of education to 
deny this. This resource must be used as 
a vital part of the process of education 
in character. Before it, however, should 


come the careful education of all the con- 


tributing elements; and it should be fol- 
lowed by that education and training 
which will apply this new purpose to every 
feature of character. 

In general there are just two ways in 
which the Sunday-school teacher can edu- 
cate personality in respect to any of these 
elements that go to make it up. In the 
first place, he may try to stimulate the 
personal qualities by direct appeals. This 
is the classic method of education. It 
means that teachers appeal in one form 
or another to what is within the nature 
in the effort to impress it. We teach, we 
instruct, we exhort. This is the method 
of the classroom and the pulpit. It is 


better for information than for conduct. 


Thus may one reach the emotions, arouse 


_ desires, convey information. 


In doing this important part of the edu- 
cation of personality effectively it is im- 
perative that the best possible selection 
and grading of materials of instruction 
be made. In making this selection of 
matter the first question is not whether 
it is in the Bible or out of it; but is rather 
whether it is the most suitable that can 


373 


Educational Function 


possibly be found to meet the exact spir- 
itual needs of the child for whom it is 
selected. If, for any reason, a modern 
instance of God’s dealing with his chil- 
dren or of man’s response to the Father 
can be made more vivid, more inspiring, 
more appealing to the child than Biblical 
instances, the modern teacher must be 
able to use the former, just as the Master 
did in his teaching. It is quite immate- 
rial whether we use Bible passages to illus- 
trate modern conditions, or use modern 
illustrations of Bible truth. God’s truth 
is equally true and equally sacred no 
matter when it comes to light. (See 
Extra-Biblical Studies. ) 

In the second place, character, and all 
the elements of character, may be edu- 
cated through expression. This is the 
reverse of the ordinary instruction. It 
is thoroughly accepted in general educa- 
tion that action is more educative of the 
person who is acting than stimulation or 
impression can be. It is for this reason 
that laboratories, shops, clinics, and moot 
courts exist. Sunday schools have not 
yet come to realize the tremendous educa- 
tional value of securing actual expression 
of the impulses which presumably are 
aroused by good teaching. As an insti- 
tution for the education of character and 
life the Sunday school must find ways to 
give actual practice in choosing and act- 
ing in accordance with the best ideals and 
purpose which the pupils have. This can 
be done only by making pupils realize that 
the home, the street relations, the school, 
the games are the clinics in which the 
teachings about sympathy, truthfulness, 
honesty, unselfishness and other features 
of Christlikeness must be practiced if at 
all. It is only through this expressive 
side of the personal qualities, in self-sacri- 
fice and social service, that we can de- 
velop and fortify the life with the results 
of experience; crystallize purposes into 
habits; and transform individual moral 
victories of the will into habits of right 
decision, (Sunday School and the Edu- 
cated Man.) 

The Sunday school as a school of 
morals and religion must use both the 
above methods. It must appeal in such a 
way as to stimulate the proper impulses, 
cultivate right desires, guide in right 
thinking; it must also find ways so to 
inspire and guide the actual expressions 


Educational Value of Play 


of life as to furnish fine experiences, build 
up right habits, and secure skill in right 
conduct. Certain facts concerning leader- 
ship may be taught; certain desires and 
emotions respecting it may be aroused; 
but actual leadership is only to be secured 
by practice in leading. (See Leadership, 
Training for.) It is much the same with 
all the personal qualities of the religious 


and spiritual life. T. W. Gattoway. 


EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF PLAY.— 
SEE Piay as A Factor IN RELIGIOUS 
EDUCATION. 


EFFICIENCY IN THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL.—Sre EpucationaL FuNcTION 
oF THE 8. 8.; Moran anp RELIGIOUS 
Epucation, Tests oF EFFICIENCY IN; 
StTanpDarps, 8. 8S.; Sunpay ScHoont Coun- 
CIL OF EVANGELICAL DENOMINATIONS, 


EGGLESTON, EDWARD (1837-1902). 
—Clergyman, editor, and author. Born 
in Indiana; ordained to the ministry in 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1857; 
engaged in pastorates during ten years; 
editor of Little Corporal, a juvenile paper, 
Chicago, 1866-67 ; editor National Sunday 
School Teacher, Chicago, 1867-70 (con- 
tributing editor during several years fol- 
lowing) ; literary editor of The Independ- 
ent, New York, 1870-72; editor Hearth 
and Home, New York, 1871-%2; pastor 
“Church of Christian Endeavor,” Brook- 
lyn, N. Y., 1874-79; author of several 
popular works of fiction, and participant 
in important United States governmental 
responsibilities. This biographical out- 
line indicates the really brief period of his 
activities along Sunday-school lines. 

Physically, Edward Eggleston was more 
than usually fine, with dark curling hair 
thickly clustering to his shoulders, eyes 
keen and flashing, and heavy beard. 
Gifted with a full, sonorous voice and 
fluent in speech, his personality was par- 
ticularly pleasing, and he was promptly 
acclaimed and recognized as a leader and 
competent teacher of teachers, his lesson 
expositions and practical hints in the 
Nattonal Sunday School Teacher win- 
ning great favor, and his institute and 
convention work being of a very high 
order and in great demand, with varied. 
and unique “Drill lessons.” His hearers 
were profoundly impressed, as: with black- 


374 


Eggleston 


board and repetitions by his audience he © 


taught them “The Art of Gaining Atten- 
tion,” “The Art of Questioning,” “How to 
Study a Lesson,” and other topics directly 
related to the development of teachers. 
This led to the publication of two small 
volumes in 1869, the first of which was 
entitled Sunday School Conventions and 
Institutes; with Suggestions on County 
and Township Organizations. Its main 


purpose is indicated by the title and it was _ 


rich in useful working outlines. It was 


followed by the Manual: a Practical Guide — 


to Sunday-School Work, which was aptly 
characterized as “thoroughly alive with 
interest and earnestness . 
ness, simplicity, and force.” 


ee 


. . great direct- — 


The third National Sunday School — 
Convention was held in Newark, N. J., in 
1869, after an interval of ten years from — 


the previous convention. At that time 
Mr. Eggleston was chairman of the Exec- 


utive Committee of the Illinois State Sun- 
day School Convention, and also chairman ~ 
of the Committee that issued the call for — 
the Newark Convention; as such he called ~ 


the latter to order and was its business 


manager. 
made but one formal and thoroughly char- 


acteristic address, urging its hearers at its 


close to “go home better men, wiser men, 
fuller men, ‘crazier’ men in Sunday-school 
work.” | 

In his editorial articles and in public 
address he was impatient and outspoken 
with regard to Sunday-school shams; he 
was not favorable to grading or graded 


He spoke several times, yet 


eS Ged BEES 


lesson material; he declared that “all os- — 


tentatious machinery is a humbug and a 
sham, and we waste power enough in run- ~ 


ning the machine to double its results.” 
He declared that “Sunday-school work was 


filled with empiricism, and what may be © 
called the habit of shallowness has become 
It is time we had ~ 
done with hobby riding; every good thing © 


too: much’! fixed: Jato, 


is ridden to death.” 


In the National Sunday School Con- _ 
vention of 1872, he stood almost alone in 


opposition to one uniform lesson plan, and 


contested heroically the popular tide. In 
reply to an impassioned address by Mr. 
B. F. Jacobs (g. v.) in favor of universal 
uniform. lessons, Mr. Eggleston declared 
that it was “a movement backward; it 
would pull down good schools; produce a 
dead level uniformity; place a mortgage 





Egyptians 


on Sunday-school work for the succeeding 
ten years; but realized that he was in a 
helpless minority, yet must stand by his 
convictions.” His personal efforts in Sun- 
day-school work were practically com- 
pleted at this time, he announced, and 
thenceforward he would devote himself to 
literary pursuits. But in 1880, in an 
article for a Sunday-school teachers’ 
periodical, he referred to “the unpractical 
idealism prevalent,” and claimed that “the 
system of rigid adherence to one lesson for 
all the school, combined with selections 
now and then of subjects fit only for a 
theological seminary, is not in accordance 
with practical wisdom. . . . I am not 
too severe when I call this unpractical 
idealism, though I know, to my cost, the 
awful result of assailing the great god- 
dess of Diana whom Ephesus and all the 
world worshipeth.” © R Braoxatt. 


EGYPTIANS.—Srz Non-CuristTian 
ScriprurEs; RELIcIous EpvucarTion, 
ANCIENT, History OF. 


EMBER DAYS.—SzrxE CHRISTIAN YEAR. 


EMOTION, PLACE OF, IN THE RE- 
LIGIOUS EDUCATION OF THE YOUNG. 
—The teacher follows the psychologist in 
recognizing the necessity of allowing for 
the play of feeling in the individual hfe. 
Some teachers have been tempted, and 
perhaps a few still are, to overemphasize 
feeling at the expense of thoughtfulness, 
and the appeal to the will. (See Will, 
Education of the.) But the fact remains 
that education of whatever kind implies 
by its very nature the presence of impul- 
sive energies rooted in feeling. Emotional 
elements, or elements of feeling in associa- 
tion with an object or an idea, are the 
mainspring of education. ‘They give to 
it both energy and’ direction. 

Fundamentally, the life of feeling has 
either of two standard directions. It con- 
sists of the pleasurable accompaniments of 
experience, which give to life its positive 
tendency; and, on the other hand, pain- 
ful or unpleasant accompaniments, which 
give rise to aversion. Allowing for the 
necessity of avoiding overstimulation of 
feeling, and especially the dangerous tend- 
ency to arouse in the young precocious 
manifestations of emotion in forms be- 
longing to adult life, it is clear that reli- 


375 


Emotion, Place of 


gious education must depend very largely 
for its success upon the right use of emo- 
tional appeal. The young heart has to 
ledrn to “abhor” that which is evil, to 
“cleave to” that which is good. The 
fundamental emotional attitudes of at- 
traction and aversion. reach their highest 
and most developed form in the choice of 
good and the rejection of evil. 

Hence the Bible is full of the appeal to 
right feeling as the basis and motive of 
right- behavior and true worship. But the 
adjustment is delicate and difficult. And 
there is need for the help and influence of 
the teacher. St. Paul found the issue of 
the momentous conflict between the “two 
wills” to turn solely upon the influence 
in his life of the unseen Teacher. Only in 
this way did aversion to evil reach its 
summit and become the assured’ attitude 
of his life. It is this same divine influ- 
ence which in the religious education of 
childhood and youth we endeavor to medi- 
ate and interpret. We lift up the young 
heart towards the love of the good and the 
love of God. And through this higher 
love the higher choice is made. 

Influence of this kind has a twofold 
source ; in the teacher’s own emotional life, 
and in that of his pupils. , 

1. The meaning and interest which the 
truths and ideals he is presenting have 
for the teacher himself will always have 
much to do with making religious teach- 
ing successful. Truth that has been 
warmed at the fires of the teacher’s own 
heart is the truth that impresses and wins. 
The surest sources of power in teaching 
are the teacher’s own love, trust, and 
reverence, finding play and expression. 
(See Friendship as a Factor in Religious 
Education.) The weakness of teaching 
which depends too exclusively upon “les- 
son helps” is to be traced to the absence of 
this clear expression of oneself. Second 
hand ideas are apt to lack the warm per- 
sonal glow which attaches to one’s own 
thought and experience. 

2. In the next place, the emotional re- 
sponses of the young heart itself will have 
a central place in all successful religious 
education. At one time it may be right- 
eous indignation; at another time, wisely 
directed “fear”; more usually it will be 
affection, or trust, or reverence, that is 
aroused in answer to the teacher’s call. 
As these and other emotional impulses are 


Emotions, Training the 


stirred, severally and in their final unity, 
the pupil is on the way towards a religious 
decision ‘vhich has within it the elements 
of permanency. (See Emotions, Training 
the. 

THISELTON Mark. 
References: 

Hastings, James, etc. Encyclopedia 
of Religion and Ethics. Emotion, by 
A. Dorner. 

James, William. The Principles of 
Psychology. Vol. 2, Chap. XXYV. 
(New York, c1890.) 

Monroe, Paul, ed. Cyclopedia of 
Education. Emotion, by 8. H. Judd. 


EMOTIONS, TRAINING THE.—Emo- 
tions may be considered as those forces, 
such as love and fear, joy and sorrow, 
hope and despondency, curiosity and dis- 
gust, confidence and alarm, reverence and 
contempt, trust and anxiety, that with 
ceaseless ebb and flow are reflected in the 
thoughts and deeds of man. They appear 
in varying degrees of intensity. Seldom 
does any one completely dominate the 
mind to the exclusion of all others. They 
are never found isolated from the other 
kinds of mental activity. They may be 
looked upon as forces, for they not only 
appear in connection with the other kinds 
of mental activity, but also definitely influ- 
ence the quality of the thoughts and 
actions of which they are parts. 

Every individual possesses natural, in- 
born tendencies or dispositions because of 
which he is affected by certain kinds of 
sense impressions, to which stimuli he 
responds in definite ways that have 
not been acquired through experience. 
In general it may be said that when 
these instinctive tendencies are permitted 
to become actions or thoughts pleasur- 
able emotions arise and when, in any 
way, they are strongly opposed or 
thwarted, emotions of self-depression or 
hostility result. Emotions are not the 
ultimate causes of human conduct, but 
are rather symptoms that indicate whether 
or not the kinds of thought and action 
for which the individual is by nature 
suited are present in his conduct. When 
the instinctive impulse becomes a part of 
conduct and the corresponding feeling of 
pleasure arises, both become stronger. It 
is easier for the former to appear again 
and the emotion that accompanies it tends 


376 


_-- 


Emotions, Training the 


to become ascendant over the other emo- 
tions. When, for any reason, the instinc- 


tive dispositions are not present in con- 
duct, unpleasant emotions permeate it, the 
dispositions lose strength and are less apt 
to reappear. 

These facts modify the systems of reac- 
tions that are acquired or built up as the 
child develops. The actions and emotions 
of an infant are more nearly instinctive 
than at any later period. But as habits 
are formed by the regular and frequent 
recurrence of certain acts or by the vivid- 
ness with which they are experienced, the 
emotions themselves become organized. A 
well developed habit becomes a pleasur- 


able mode of behavior, and so emotion 


may be looked upon as a symptom reveal- 
ing to what extent both instinctive and 


acquired tendencies are present in con-— 
duct. When the impulses present in con- 


duct are almost wholly instinctive, the ac- 
companying emotions are correspondingly 
simple and intensely pervasive. But as 
habits become mature, the emotions that 
accompany them tend to acquire the sim- 
plicity and intensity of those associated 
with instinctive behavior, 

Emotions support the impulses which 


they accompany and in connection with 


which they originate, giving them strength 
or weakness, 
pulses toward certain appropriate ends by 
accepting some thoughts and rejecting 
others, Fear, for instance, has a type of 
conduct that corresponds to it. If a par- 


They also direct those im-— 


ticular mental state is characterized by 


love, it is easier for thoughts of good will 


to find an active part in directing the 


impulses that are present than it would 
be if the mind were filled with fear. Love 
also rejects thoughts of ill-will. 
emotion tends to organize into its own 
system and around its own impulse what- 
ever other mental factors are available 


Every © 


and will aid the impulse to achieve a 


definite end. Unless the emotion is thus 


permitted to eventuate in conduct, it re- 


mains abortive and incomplete. The true 
origin and nature of emotions can never 
be clearly understood except as systems in 
which are included both volitional and in- 
tellectual elements. In his article on 
“Emotions,” in Hastings’ Hncyclopedia 
of Religion and Ethics, A. Dorner says: 
“Impulse as such, however, is not emotion ; 
rather it becomes emotion only when the 


Emotions, Training the 


object to which it is directed affects the 
feeling and prompts the will to act. The 
object may be so persistently present to 
the mind as to give a sustained tone to 
the feelings which, again, gives a definite 
bias to the will. The emotions, then, are 
distinguished from spontaneous impulses 
by the fact that they are traceable to some 
impression, or feeling, and emerge as a 
tendency to react upon this stimulus. We 
may say, therefore, that the emotions are 
combinations of feeling with movements 
or acts of will, and that they may have 
either transitory or a lasting character, 
according as they are immediate reactions 
upon a definite object, or upon habitual 
states of the soul which rest upon a more 
or less persistent combination of feeling 
and volition; these, in turn, depending 
upon the object affecting the soul.” 

From the standpoint of the Sunday- 
school teacher, it is an especially signifi- 
cant fact that not only does an emotion 
present in a child’s mind at a given time 
tend to organize into its system all of the 
serviceable ideas that are available at that 
time, but also that, as it becomes relatively 
dominant, it tends to determine the kinds 
of new ideas that are received. Thus the 
emotions that are firmly established in a 
child’s life tend to determine the future 
as well as the present types of conduct. 
An emotion that calls into service ideas of 
a certain kind thereby, indirectly, influ- 
ences apperception. Love, for instance, 
influences present conduct, refusing to 
make evil thoughts (see 1 Cor. 13:5) a 
part of its system. But when love be- 
comes established as a permanent mood in 
the life of the pupil, the continued pres- 
ence of its corresponding thoughts of good 
will become an enduring basis for the ap- 
perception of ideas of like moral quality. 

Hence it is important that at the earli- 
est practicable age there be established in 
the pupil, as dominant emotional qual- 
ities, those types of emotions that are truly 
Christian in character. There are cer- 
tain standard Christian emotions, such as 
love, joy, peace, hope, confidence, and 
trust, which, by the use of various peda- 
gogical means known to the intelligent 
teacher, may be awakened in the pupil’s 
mind during a session of the Sunday 
school. A service of worship that does not 
definitely arouse one of these standard 
emotions falls short of its function as a 


377 


Emotions, Training the 


service of worship. The telling of a story, 
the characters in which are vividly repre- 
sented as possessing these “symptoms,” 
will likewise awaken these same emotions 
within the pupils. 

One very important function of the 
Sunday school is to take the pupils regu- 
larly and frequently out of the ordinary 
environment or common ways of doing 
things, place them under the most favor- 
able conditions, and by suggestion cause 
them to experience these standard types 
of emotion, The purity and intensity 
which characterizes such emotional expe- 
riences will greatly influence the rapidity 
with which they become established per- 
manently in the lives of the pupils. Be- 
cause of the higher suggestibility of early 
childhood, this problem is most easily 
solved in the Beginners’ and Primary 
departments. This work of nurturing the 
distinctively Christian emotions should be 
carried on until they are so firmly estab- 
lished that the pupil is adequately forti- 
fied against even the temporary domina- 
tion of a non-Christian system. 

Music has the power directly to give 
an emotional quality to the mind. Better 
than any other form of worship, it ex- 
presses various moods without involving 
other forms of mental activity. By the 
use of words, it is impossible to express 
accurately what one feels. But music aids 
such expression, Children like to sing. 
They also enjoy instrumental music. It 
is especially by the use of music that they 
are able to give immediate expression to 
their emotions. In the singing of a hymn 
by all of the pupils in a department or a 
school each one, because of social sugges- 
tion, is helped to experience and to ex- 
press the emotion reflected in the hymn. 
By the use of properly selected hymns, it 
is possible to stimulate such emotions as 
trust, reverential awe, and joy. Thus 
music, in the hands of an intelligent 
teacher, is a powerful means of directly 
attacking and overcoming the non-Chris- 
tian types of emotion that may be present 
in the minds of the pupils when they 
enter the Sunday school. By a direct 
appeal to the intellect, the teacher might 
be unable to substitute cheerfulness and 
love for gloom and hatred. But music is 
less apt to stir up inhibitions or antago- 
nisms. Especially when wedded to poetry, 
with its rhythmical beats suggestive of 


Emotions, Training the 


lofty religious sentiments, is music able 
to carry to the child’s mind a healing and 
inspiring message. 

The Sunday school cannot fulfill its 
responsibility for the training of the emo- 
tions of the pupil merely by the weekly 
stimulation of those that are truly Chris- 
tian. Since the emotion that does not 
eventuate in conduct is abortive and in- 
complete, the Sunday school must consider 
itself responsible for the providing of 
suitable expressional activities for its 
pupils, The pupils should be given op- 
portunities for appropriate recreation and 
various forms of graded social service. 
Unless such opportunities are provided 
the most elementary mental factors will 
never become organized for truly Chris- 
tian living. The spiritual injury that 
would inevitably come to the child who 
becomes used to having one kind of emo- 
tion aroused on Sunday, but whose week- 
day conduct contains evidence of the pres- 
ence of opposing systems of emotions, is 
apparent. The only way to train the 
emotions is to provide for their finding 
frequent and regular expression in types 
of conduct, the moral qualities of which 
are like their own. The right kinds of 
work have spiritual value for they provide 
occasions for the higher development and 
organization of the elementary emotions. 
(See Activity and its Place in Religious 
Education. ) 

Instincts and instinctive impulses are 
not all present at birth. With the growth 
of the nervous system they appear, each 
at its own time. The natural play life 
of a young child, for instance, reveals 
the presence of different kinds of instinc- 
tive impulses that are different from those 
of adolescence. The kind of activity that 
occasions a pleasurable emotion in a Be- 
ginner would be unpleasant to an Inter- 
mediate pupil. Thus the training of the 
emotions involves a new problem with the 
appearance of every new instinct. 

Since the properly graded school pro- 
vides religious ideas that are closely re- 
lated to the new interests that are awak- 
ened by these newly arrived instincts, 
the problem of training the emotions is 
suggested not only by the presence of 
an instinct but also by the character of 
the religious ideas contained in a prop- 
erly graded system of lessons. The emo- 
tion, love, as it appears in the conduct of 


378 


Emotions, Training the 


a Beginner includes in its system only a 
relatively small portion of the ideas and 
instinctive impulses that would be in- 
cluded in the love that had become well 
established in the life of a member of the 
Senior Department. The danger of a 
temporary discontinuance of the training 
of the emotions is thus seen. If a young 
man, seventeen years of age, should come 
suddenly to consider the kinds of reli- 
gious ideas suited to his strongly rational 
interests, but with a trust that had not 
developed since early childhood, he would 
find it difficult if not, at first, impossible 
for his childlike trust to include in its 
system ideas so vastly different from those 
which alone it had assimilated, or with 
which this emotion had become associated. 
Unless appropriate kinds of conduct are 
provided during each period of the pupil’s 
development his character, upon arrival 
at maturity, will be deficient in impor- 
tant emotional qualities. Examples of 
such deficiencies in emotional training are 
seen in those adult Christians who are 
lacking in tenderness, or forcefulness, or 
cheerfulness. 

From the practical point of view, an 
emotion may be considered as a symptom 
or an index to guide the teacher in this 
task of providing suitable kinds of reli- 
gious instruction and activity. If the 
pupil finds pleasure in types of conduct 
that are genuinely Christian and at the 
same time are pedagogically suited to his 
instinctive interests, the work of the 
teacher at that time is successful. Such 
expressions as “O how love I thy law” and 
“T delight to do thy will, O Lord” indicate 
the presence of pleasurable emotions. 
They are just as possible and as appro- 
priate during immature as in mature life. 
But the possibility of their presence de- 
pends upon other things, upon the pres- 
entation of “the law” in such terms as 
can be understood by the immature in- 
tellect, terms that are interesting to it, 
and upon the provision for that conduct 
which is likewise suited to the degree of 
volitional development. 

In the Beginners’ and Primary depart- 
ments, religious education is concerned 
largely with the training of the emotions. 
At this age the pupil does not have the 
intellectual ability to work with facility 
with ideas. Such emotions as love and 
trust are already present in the life of 


Emotions, Training the 


the child who comes from a normal 
home. Curiosity characterizes his attitude 
toward his new and wonderful world. 
This child is psychologically unable to 
take God and nature into account in a 
purely intellectual way. The teacher’s 
problem is so to train these emotions of 
love, trust, and curiosity that they shall 
include suitably simple ideas concerning 
God and his world. One practical danger 
to be avoided at this age is that of making 
the fear of disobedience a dominant emo- 
tion. The normal child-feeling in regard 
to sin tends toward disgust or repulsion 
rather than fear in its extreme form. 
Fear, more than any other emotion, when 
once overstimulated, tends to return and 
to crowd out other useful emotions. The 
‘result is a type of religious conduct that 
is hesitant and negative rather than full 
of assurance and confident endeavor. 

A comprehensive plan for the training 
of the emotions provides for giving to 
the child, thus early, an emotional ideal. 
This ideal is enlarged and enriched as 
his emotional life develops. But he is 
never without a standard with -reference 
to which he can judge of the propriety of 
a newly suggested emotion. In early 
childhood this problem is relatively simple. 
Love and trust are spontaneous in a little 
child. But during the later years of de- 
velopment it is important for him to be 
able to meet the temptation to harbor non- 
Christian emotions with a clear conception 
of a worthy ideal, and also with the de- 
termination to be true to it. Love that 
in early childhood is the result of sugges- 
tion may now be the result of obedience 
to a Divine command. 

Such training helps to equip the indi- 
vidual for the highest social usefulness. 
Without experiencing the truly Christian 
emotions it is impossible to gain the deep- 
est insight into the lives of others. Every 
individual is surrounded by both imper- 
sonal and personal objects. The senti- 
ments that should be developed toward 
the former and which are of use in accu- 
mulating wealth or in the mastery of 
natural forces are void of the tender emo- 
tions that should characterize one’s atti- 
tude toward persons. The proper training 
of the emotions according to the Chris- 
tian ideals equips the individual with 
those tender emotions that help him to 
live a life of highest social utility. 


379 


Emotions, Training the 


The strategic importance of placing the 
emphasis upon the more elementary or 
fundamental system of Christian emotions 
is seen, The chief emphasis is placed 
upon love. As love tends to establish 
itself permanently in the life or to or- 
ganize into its system all of the other 
emotions, thoughts and actions that may 
be made to contribute to its strength, the 
result is generosity, not meanness, gentle- 
ness, kindliness, thoughtful regard, pa- 
tience, humility, charity, forbearance. 
Love stimulates sincerity, courage, forti- 
tude, loyalty, fidelity. The actions that 
flow from the bonds of friendship which 
love of one’s fellowman inspires have the 
greatest economic and _ social values. 
There is a vital connection between such 
love and reverence, confidence, faith, hope 
and trust. Even though the elementary 
Christian emotion does not come to the 
place of absolute supremacy in the indi- 
vidual life, in so far as its organization 
does proceed, its beneficial results appear. 

The one whose emotional life has thus 
been trained possesses abiding inclinations 
to withstand the influences of a hostile 
environment. Under circumstances that 
would otherwise tend to produce emotions 
that would result in a decrease of intel- 
lectual or volitional or social efficiency, 
these effects do not take place. In Phil- 
ippi for instance, after Paul and Silas 
had been accused by the Jews they were 
thrust into the inner prison and their feet 
made fast in the stocks. But the narrator 
says, “At midnight Paul and Silas prayed 
and sang praises to God.” 'Thus it is that 
the one whose emotions have been trained 
according to Christian standards is able 
to triumph over untoward circumstances. 
(See Emotion, Place of, in the Religious 
Education of the Young; Will, Education 
of the.) 

N. EH. RicHarpson. 

References: 

Britan, H. H. The Power of Music. 
Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and 
Scientific Methods, July 18, 1908. 

Galloway, George. The Principles of 
Religious Development. (London, 1909.) 

Hastings, James, ed. Hncyclopedia 
of Religion and Ethics. Emotion, by 
A. Dorner. 

James, William. The Principles of 
Psychology. Vol. 2, Chap. XXY. 
(New York, c1890.) 


England 


McDougall, W. Introduction to So- 
cial Psychology. (New York, 1909.) 
Monroe, Paul, ed. Cyclopedia of 
Education. Emotion, by C. H. Judd. 
Ribot, Th. The Psychology of the 
Emotions. Ed. 2. (London, 1911.) 
Shand, A. F. The Foundations of 
Character, (London, 1914.) 
Stratton, G. M. Psychology of the 
Religious Life. (london, 1911.) 


ENGLAND, SECOND SESSION OF 
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL IN.—In a very 
large number of Sunday schools in Eng- 
land two sessions are held. The first is 
before morning worship; the second dur- 
ing the afternoon. The Sunday School 
Union prepares and issues a_ course 
for use in the morning school which is 
Old Testament when the International is 
New, and New Testament when the Inter- 
national is Old. Recent years have wit- 
nessed a growing difficulty in the conduct 
of the morning school, as it has been a 
problem how to secure a sufficient number 
of teachers at that comparatively early 
hour; the same applies in a lesser degree 
to the pupils. 

The result is that in many instances 
collective instruction by the superintend- 
ent has taken the place of class teaching, 
and the theme of the instruction is more 
and more the catechism of the church. 
The influence of the Young Worshippers’ 
League is tending to shorten the session 
of the school from one hour to thirty or 
forty minutes at most. (See League of 
Worshipping Children.) The general 
sentiment among church workers is that 
while the morning school may call for 
modification, it would be a blunder to dis- 
continue it. (See Rural England, Sun- 
day Schools in.) _ 

J. W. BUTCHER. 


ENGLAND, SUNDAY SCHOOL IN.— 
SEE Rarkes, RoBERT; RuraL ENGLAND, 
SUNDAY SCHOOLS IN; SUNDAY SCHOOLS 
IN ENGLAND BEFORE ROBERT RAIKES; 
SuNDAY ScHOOLS IN ENGLAND FROM 
Ropert Raikes ONWARD. See also the 
Various Denominational Articles. 


ENROLLMENT OF THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL.—Srxr Secretary, Tue S. §8.; 
STATISTICAL METHODS FOR THE S. 8. 


380 


Epworth League 


ENTERTAINMENTS.—Srz AmuszE- 
MENTS AND THE S. 8.; Festivats, S. §.; 
MovineG PIcTURES IN THE 8. S.; RECREA- 
TION AND THE S. 8S. 


ENVIRONMENT.—Srrt ATMOSPHERE 
IN RELIGIous EDUCATION ; ORGANIZATION, 
Ss. S 


EPIPHANY.—SzrE CHRISTIAN YEAR. 


EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 
—SEE GraDED LEssoNs, BRITISH. 


EPWORTH LEAGUE.—The young 
people’s organizations of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South, and the Methodist 
Church of Canada have the common name 
Epworth League. The three societies are 
mutually independent, but unite period- 
ically in holding international conven- 
tions. They are organized for the training 
of the young people in religious and social 
activities, the culture of the personal spir- 
itual life, and the general work of their 
respective churches, 

The Epworth League in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church was organized at Cleve- 
land, Ohio, on May 15, 1889, at a meeting 
of delegates from five organizations of 
Methodist young people then existing in 
various parts of the country. Its plan of 
work, outlined in a constitution for local 
“chapters,” revised in 1903 and 1913, is 
fourfold, and the departments as now 
designated are, Spiritual Work, World 
Evangelism, Social Service, and Culture 
and Recreation. The League is found in 
almost every Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and its membership, senior, and junior, is 
825,000. The Junior League includes the 
children between nine and sixteen years 
of age. There is no age limit for the Ep- 
worth League, though a general sentiment 
discourages active membership after the 
age of thirty. 

The first department maintains a 
weekly devotional meeting, usually on 
Sunday evening preceding public worship, 
and conducts Bible study classes and work 
in personal evangelism. The second de- 
partment provides for mission study and 
training in Christian stewardship, and 
encourages special gifts to missions, aggre- 
gating in recent years nearly or quite 
$100,000 annually. The third department 


Epworth League 


pays large attention to local relief work, 
_ the support of the church’s philanthropic 
institutions by gifts of money and sup- 
plies, and the general subject of Christian 
citizenship. The fourth department cares 
for recreational and intellectual activities, 
and provides schemes of church and com- 
munity recreation. 

The district organizations, which in- 
clude usually from 25 to 50 chapters, hold 
annual conventions. Larger groups meet 
in conventions occasionally. Among the 
most significant gatherings are the 
summer institutes. The work of these 
institutes is done in a session of seven to 
ten days, with the mornings given to the 
study of departmental work, the after- 
noons deyoted to recreation, and the eve- 
nings occupied by inspirational and pop- 
ular addresses. At these institutes the 
claims of religious vocations are carefully 
presented to the young people. 

The oversight of the Epworth League is 
committed to a Board of Control of 
eighteen members, appointed by the quad- 
rennial General Conference of the church. 
The Board holds annual meetings. The 
general secretary is the League’s executive 
officer, with headquarters at Chicago, and 
there are assistant secretaries for the Ger- 
man and the Negro sections of the church. 
The official organ of the League is the 
Epworth Herald, published weekly at Chi- 
cago, founded in 1890. The League motto 
is “Look up, lift up.” 

The young people’s organization in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was 
originated under General Conference 
sanction in 1890, and naturally adopted 
the name Epworth League, in harmony 
with the movement then well under way 
in the Methodist Episcopal Church, as 
the purpose and methods of the two or- 
ganizations were largely the same. For 
four years it was under the care of the 
church’s Sunday School Committee, and 
then became a distinct branch of church 
work. In 1894 the official organ, The 
Epworth Era, appeared, and a general 
secretary was elected. The League also 
has four departments. Its missionary 
work is vigorously supported, and its de- 
votional meeting largely takes the place of 
the former class meeting, now fallen into 
disuse. The governing body is a Board of 
Control of seven members. The head- 
quarters are at Nashville, Tenn. The 


381 


Eskrick 


general secretary is also editor of the offi- 
cial organ. Four assemblies of from six 
to ten days are held annually, and thirty 
conferences—gatherings of from two to 
four days each, where the institute plan 
is carried out. The present membership 
is more than 137,000, in about 4,000 
chapters. The motto is “All for Christ.” 

The Epworth League in Canada dates 
from October, 1889, when the first society 
was organized. It also was a product of 
the general movement looking to the train- 
ing and utilizing of the young life of 
Methodism. It is under the supervision 
of the Department of Sunday Schools and 
Young People’s Societies. It has five de- 
partments, Christian Endeavor, Missions, 
Literary and Social, Citizenship, Junior. 
Missionary activities are especially im- 
portant. Many district organizations sup- 
port directly a missionary on the field. 
The general secretary also edits the League 
paper, the Canadian Epworth Era, and 
four field secretaries are associated with 
him. The League holds many conventions 
and institutes each year. The present 
number of chapters is a little over 4,000, 
with a membership of about 85,000. The 
League’s motto is “Look up, lift up for 
Christ and the church.” Many local so- 
cieties in Canada bear the name “Ep- 
worth League of Christian Endeavor,” 
and are affiliated organically with the 
Christian Endeavor movement. (See 
Young People’s Societies [Great Britain ] ; 
Young People’s Society of Christian En- 


deavor.) D. B. BrumMirt. 


EPWORTH LEAGUE (GREAT BRIT- 
AIN).—SrEr Youne PEOPLE’s SOCIETIES 
(GREAT BRITAIN). 


EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES.—Serxr 
ARCHITECTURE, 8. S.; BEGINNERS’ DE- 
PARTMENT; BLACKBOARD AND Its USE; 
CraDLE Rott; GymNasiums, CHurRCH; 
HANDWORK IN THE 8, S.; Hyarene; In- 
TERMEDIATE DEPARTMENT; JUNIOR DE- 
PARTMENT; LITERATURE, S. S.; PRIMARY 
DEPARTMENT; STEREOPTICON, USE OF 
THE; STEREOSCOPE; SUNDAY SCHOOL, 
Cost OF THE, 


ESKRICK, GEORGE (d. 1807).—A 
native of York, but resided most of his 
life at Bolton and Lancashire, England. 
Was a friend of John Wesley, and enter- 


Ethical Culture 


tained many of the leading Methodists of 
his day. For some years he was the prin- 
cipal man in the Bolton church. He is 
said to have been one of the founders of 
the famous Sunday school of Bolton, 
which grew to have a membership of over 
2,000, and an average attendance of 1,800. 
The Arminian Magazine, for 1788, gives 
some account of the school as follows: 

“Many of the poor children about Bol- 
ton have been greatly neglected in their 
education, and were almost a proverb 
for wickedness, especially Sabbath-break- 
ing: which crime is often the forerunner 
of the worst of evils.” 

“But we see at present, the prospect 
of a glorious reformation. Among many 
who attend at our place, there is already 
a great change in their manners, morals, 
and learning. They are taught to read 
and write by persons who are very well 
qualified for the work. Many of the chil- 
dren can read well in the Bible, and write 
a tolerable hand; so that they are qualified 
for any common business. Their natural 
rusticity is also greatly worn off, and their 
behavior is modest and decent. About 
one hundred are taught to sing the praises 
of God; in which they have made great 
proficiency, to the admiration of those 
who hear them.” 

“But what is better than all the rest, 
the principles of religion are instilled into 
their minds. The masters endeavor to 
impress them with the fear of God; and 
by that to make all vice and wickedness 
hateful to them and urge them to obe- 
dience by the precepts and motives of 
the Gospel. Each class is spoken to sepa- 
rately every Sunday, on the nature of reli- 
gion, and they are taught their duty to 
God, their neighbor, and themselves, when 
the instructions are enforced by serious 
counsels, and solemn prayers.” 

Peter Haslan, who became a prominent 
Sunday-school advocate, was one of its 
pupils, and was present at the first Sab- 
bath of its opening. ead Byes se 


ETHICAL CULTURE, SOCIETY FOR. 
—The question may be asked, “What are 
the distinctive features of a Sunday school 
in an Ethical Society?” The first So- 
ciety for Ethical Culture was founded in 
1876. A few years later the children of 
its members were gathered together on 
Sunday mornings for services, then classes 


382 


Ethical Culture 


for the study of religion were added and 
the discussion of moral problems and 
teaching of ethics was systematically be- 
gun. Since then the Sunday school has 
grown both in size and scope. The so- 
cieties in other cities have likewise organ- 
ized Sunday schools. In Philadelphia, 
Chicago, St. Louis, and Brooklyn, the 
Sunday school is an integral part of the 
Society’s life. In place, however, the plan 
of the school varies somewhat according 
to the preferences of leaders and teachers. 
The need that children feel for a reli- 
gious explanation of things, the thirst for 
information, must be recognized and in 
order to satisfy this need the Society en- 
deavors to build up a Sunday school on 
new lines, 

The moral life of the modern child is 
seriously imperiled by its lack of spiritual 
education. The young people have lost 
those religious ideas and influences, those 
ceremonies that accustomed the children 
of past generations to a deeply reverent 
view of life. Even the children brought 
up within the church are in danger of los- 
ing this reverence. The materialistic 
tendencies of the age exert so powerful an 
influence that all the agencies of religious 
education are called upon to offset this 
pernicious influence. 

The Ethical Sunday school attempts to 
do these things—first, to give a spiritual 
interpretation, a faith in the prevailing 
power of Good in the world; second, to 
teach moral principles by example, con- 
crete illustrations, and discussions, peda- 
gogically planned according to the modern 
educational methods of the best type; 
third, to infuse enthusiasm for the moral 
life, and to train public opinion among 
the children by means of the meeting, 
sermons, stories, etc. 

The first purpose of the Sunday-school 
teaching, therefore, is the interpretation 
of the problems simple enough for the 
child mind. The idea of evolution, of the 
upward trend of humanity, the impor- 
tance of every human being as aiding in 
this development toward the perfect—this 
the central idea, is simply taught in the 
hymn of the Ethical movement, written 
by Felix Adler: 


Have you heard the Golden City 
Mentioned in the legends old, 
Everlasting light shines o’er it, 
Wondrous tales of it are told. 





Ethical Culture 


Only righteous men and women 
Dwell within its gleaming walls. 
Wrong is banished from its borders, 
Justice reigns supreme o’er all. 


We are builders of that city. 

All our joys and all our groans 
Help to rear its sacred ramparts. 
All our lives are building stones. 


But the work that we have builded 
Oft with bleeding hands and tears, 
And in error and in anguish 

Will not perish with the years. 


It will be at last made perfect 
In the universal plan. 

It will help to crown the labors 
Of the toiling hosts of man. 


It will last and shine transfigured 
In the final reign of right. 

It will merge into the splendors 

Of the City of the Light. 


Second, character building is the most 
important work of the Sunday school; 
this is the most pressing need of the time, 
and one to which the day school does not 
usually give sufficient prominence, but 
which can be best accomplished by daily, 
regular object teaching. The Sunday 
school, therefore, is called upon especially 
to supply this deficiency, to make a def- 
inite aim of the training of character. 
The idea that each period of child life has 
its own specific interests, is paralleled by 
the idea that each period has also its spe- 
cific powers and that certain duties are 
proper at that period. Thus in the earli- 
est years the paramount duty of childhood 
is obedience. In the years immediately 
succeeding it is the duty of right relations 
to brothers and sisters, reverence to par- 
ents and later still, right relations to those 
outside the home. These duties are taught 
by concrete examples, by fairy tales and 
fables to the young pupils. Similarly, at 
the time when physical activity is the 
keynote of the child’s life, physical cour- 
age is most admired, the stories of courage 
and fortitude are loved by children and 
heroes are imitated. Hence this is the 
time to establish these virtues. 

As character development is the chief 
purpose of the Sunday school, the Society 
makes use of the general assembly to influ- 
ence the children by means of the presen- 
tation and discussion of ethical questions, 
thus forming public opinion. Sometimes 
duties inside the family may be more 
effectively impressed by discussion outside 


383 


Ethical Culture 


the home. The gathering of children into 
groups and fostering of public standards 
is an important function of the Sunday 
school. There are not merely classes but 
groups in which each child is made to feel 
itself a vital factor in opposing dishon- 
esty, cruelty, or meanness. The leaders 
of the groups exert a personal influence, 
but allow the children self-government 
and initiative in planning their work, 
arranging festivals, etc. Hach group, 
moreover, is actively engaged in some spe- 
cial charitable work, carried out by the 
members themselves—some sick child or 
poor family in need of assistance being 
made the ward of the group. 

Third, the Sunday school is the place 
for ceremonies and festivals beloved by 
children. Readings and responses, songs 
and poems fill up the last hour when all 
the groups are gathered together, a short 
address or sermon ending the services. 
The children are encouraged to add their 
own contribution to the services, short 
accounts of their work, a résumé of the 
lessons, an original poem or essay, or a 
play written by the group members adding 
novelty. The actual teaching by the group 
leaders embraces the following subjects: 

I. For the youngest group seven to nine 
years. Fairy stories and fables, to develop 
the child’s imagination, give him a sense 
of unity with his environment, and point 
out the simple duties of the child. 

II. Earlier stories from the Bible deal- 
ing with the relations between parents and 
thildren, brothers and sisters, to teach the 
duties of the family, and to give a sense 
of the sacredness of these duties. 

Ilf. The heroic figures from the Bible 
are presented and examples are also drawn 
from Greek history and fable. The spe- 
cial lessons center around courage, loyalty, 
honor, and self-sacrifice. 

IV. The Hebrew moral code is studied 
because as a whole it deals with duties and 
virtues within the comprehension of chil- 
dren eleven to twelve years of age, and 
because it is the most concrete exposition 
which we have of justice, temperance, 
charity, honoring of parents, etc. 

V. ‘The lessons of freedom and self- 
control are presented as illustrated in 
Greek history. Physical freedom and 
prowess are shown to have been developed 
by the training of the Spartan children, 
intellectual freedom is illustrated by the 


Eugenics 


Athenians, and moral freedom by the ex- 
ample of Socrates. 

VI. As a preparation for the study of 
the New Testament, Hebrew history is 
briefly recounted. The stories of its chief 
heroes, martyrs, and prophets are retold. 

VII. The work of the oldest class deals 
with the New Testament. The life of 
Jesus is told and, the parables are dis- 
cussed, 

After leaving the Sunday school, from 
which they graduate with appropriate 
ceremonies, the young men are invited to 
join the Sunday-evening clubs, which con- 
tinue ethical discussion and study, oppor- 
tunities for practical work in settlement 
life, observation and discussion of business 
ethics, ethics of the law, ete. The young 
girls continue in afternoon classes under 
the leadership of social workers, with dis- 
cussions of and study of literature relat- 
ing to the subjects of philanthropy, settle- 
ment work, and social reform. In the 
Society’s day school a complete system of 
ethical instruction is worked out—start- 
ing in the youngest classes with fairy tales, 
etc., up to the study of religions from 
the oldest group, with an intermediate 
department devoted to the study of legis- 
lation and the law of the state, thus giv- 
ing the children an insight into the penal- 
ties that attend infractions of the moral 
law. Mrs. Fenrx ApuER. 

EUGENICS.—This comparatively new 
subject has been defined as “the study of 
agencies under social control that may im- 
prove or impair the racial qualities of 
future generations, either physically or 
mentally.” Eugenics is a new word, but 
it stands for ideas and visions which have 
existed for ages. The researches of 
modern science and the development of 
present-day conceptions of social con- 
sciousness have, however, enabled eugenic 
principles and practices to be enunciated 
in more or less scientific terms. The great 
hypothesis of evolution and the vast ac- 
cumulation of biological, sociological, and 
medical data have made it possible in 
these latter days to formulate, at least in 
provisional form, the ideals of eugenics 
and to define some of the conditions for 
race efficiency. | 

Much further investigation regarding 
the relative influence of heredity and en- 
vironment on racial welfare will be needed 


384 


Eugenics 


before we can venture to speak of an ac- 
tual science of racial betterment. At the 
present time there is danger that un- 
trained, unscientific, sentimental enthusi- 
asts by their imperfect, exaggerated, or 
eccentric presentation of the truths of 
eugenics will hinder rather than hasten 
the coming of a rational science of race 
efficiency. There is danger of so-called 
eugenists being satisfied with the results 
of laboratory experiments, and so taken 
up with the study of morbid individuals 
that they will fail to maintain a compre- 
hensive view of the problem as it relates 
to society as a whole. No limited outlook 
will do, if the fundamental principles — 
governing race improvement are to be dis- 
covered. The laws of eugenics will not 
stand revealed until we have labored stren- 
uously to make medico-sociological science 
more accurate in detail and comprehensive 
in its principles, and much further experi- 
ment in genetics and the study of family 
histories will be necessary before any- 
thing approaching a dogmatic definition 
of eugenics becomes possible. 

Let it be said, however, that eugenics 
is a subject which demands the fullest 
study by every one striving for self-better- 
ment with the assistance of his neighbors. 
It is a subject which makes a very definite 
appeal to Christian workers, and espe- 
cially to those who, in the Sunday school 
or elsewhere, are endeavoring to serve 
childhood and youth, young men and 
young women on life’s threshold, and to 
strengthen them for right thinking and 
pure living. The serious eugenist cannot 
but be impressed with the new powers and 
heavy responsibilities of manhood and 
womanhood which are revealed by the 
study of eugenics. The study of this new 
subject is indicating new ways and means 
whereby girls and boys may be trained for 
life’s noblest duties and heaviest responsi- 
bilities. There can be no doubt that eu- 
genics is strengthening the demand for 
instruction in sex hygiene for the coming 
citizens, the future mothers and fathers 
of the race. (See Sex Education in §S. 8.) 
Moreover it is assisting in the presentation 
of life’s problems in definite, sane, and 
serviceable ways, and in the securing of 
measures which shall go far to prevent 
the development of diseases and disorders, 
and the adoption of habits and methods 
of thought that hamper the fullest evolu- 


Evangelical Association 


tion of the individual and the onward 
march of the race. (See Alliance of 
Honor.) 

Eugenics, rightly interpreted, provides 
a preparation for parenthood and patriot- 
ism, and puts a new force into some of 
the noblest doctrines of the Christian reli- 
gion. Eugenic ideas and ideals should 
be studied by all teachers, and to none will 
they prove of greater interest and service 
than the teachers of the Sunday school. 
These workers, whose lives and influence 
are dedicated to the highest, will find new 
weapons, fresh incentives, and invaluable 
data in the best literature of the educa- 
tional and moral movement for eugenics. 
Space will not permit of a detailed setting 
forth of the principles and practices of 
race betterment, but those who are desir- 
ous of entering upon the study of eugenics 
will find material plentiful. Eugenic so- 
cieties have been established in most pro- 
gressive countries, journals dealing with 
the subject are issued periodically, and 
an immense literature has accumulated. 

The serious student will do well to pro- 
cure the past volumes of The Hugenics 
Review and other publications of the 
Eugenics Education Society, Kingsway 
House, Kingsway, London, W.C., Eng- 
land. Problems in Eugenics, Vols. I and 
IJ, contain papers communicated to, and 
teports of, the Proceedings of the First 
International Eugenics Congress held in 
London in the summer of 1912. Amer- 
ican students should study the work of 
Dr. C. B. Davenport and his colleagues 
at the Eugenics Record Office, Cold 
Spring Harbor, Long Island, New York. 
Those desirous of following the eugenic 
movement in France should procure the 
new periodical Hugenique, the “organe de 
la société francaise d’eugenitque,” pub- 
lished by J. B. Bailliere et Fils, 19 Rue 
Haute Senille, Paris (price 12 francs a 
year). For many references likely to be 
helpful to practical workers see Human 
Derelicts: A Collection of Medico-Socio- 
logical Studies for Teachers of Religion 
and Social Workers. 

T. N. Ketynacxk, M.D. 


EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION, SUN- 
DAY-SCHOOL WORK OF THE.—This 
Association was organized by Jacob Al- 
bright in Hastern Pennsylvania in the 
year 1800. 


385 


Evangelical Association 


The denomination always had a friendly 
attitude toward religious education in gen- 
eral, and toward Sunday-school work in 
particular. 

The General Conference of 1835, which 
met at Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, inaug- 
urated the movement to organize Sun- 
day schools wherever possible. The Dis- 
cipline contains the following provision: 
“In each of our societies a Sunday school 
shall be maintained, which shall meet, if 
possible, on each Sunday of the year, at 
an appropriate hour, for religious instruc- 
tion, under the supervision of the 
Preacher-in-charge.” | 

The earliest organization of Sunday- 
school interests within the denomination 
was the establishment, in 1859, of the Sun- 
day School and Tract Union to collect 
contributions for the assistance of poor 
Sunday schols, in order to furnish them 
with cheap books and literature, and also 
for the purpose of producing and distrib- 
uting cheap tracts. 

In 1854 Der Christliche Kinderfreund, 
and in 1863 The Sunday School Mes- 
senger were issued. These were four-page 
papers adapted to juvenile readers. 

In 1907 a General Secretary of Sunday 
schools was appointed to promote the in- 
terests of Sunday-school work throughout 
the denomination. 

In 1911 a General Sunday School Board 
was established. This consists of two 
bishops, the two editors of Sunday-school 
literature, the general secretary of Sun- 
day schools, the publisher, and five lay- 
men. This Board has the management of 
the Sunday schools of the denomination. 
Its purpose is to lead the Sunday schools 
onward to a higher degree of usefulness in 
their educational and evangelistic efforts 
by the most effective means and methods. 

The first Sunday-school papers have 
been enlarged to eight pages. In addition 
to these, monthly and quarterly publica- 
tions have been provided to meet the needs » 
of teachers and pupils of all grades in the 
study of the Sunday-school lessons. 

The Sunday-school work of the Evan- 
gelical Association is in a prosperous con- 
dition, under the management of the Gen- 
eral Board. In every Conference there is 
a Conference Board to promote the work 
in the Conference. 

At present the following points receive 
special emphasis: Cradle Roll, Home De- 


Evangelism 


partment, Class Organization, Teacher 
training, Graded Organization, Mission- 
ary and Temperance Instruction, Decision 
for Christ, and Church Attendance. 

There are two editors, one for the Eng- 
lish and one for the German publications, 
and each editor has an assistant. ‘There 
is one general secretary. 

The following are the Sunday-school 
publications: The Sunday-School Mes- 
senger, an eight-page weekly; The Hvan- 
gelical Sunday-School Teacher, a forty- 
eight-page monthly; The Adult Buble 
Class Quarterly, containing forty-eight 
pages; The Senior Quarterly, containing 
thirty-two pages; The Home Department 
Quarterly, containing forty pages; The 
Intermediate Quarterly, containing thirty- 
two pages; and My Lesson, a four-page 
weekly Primary paper. | 

The following publications are German: 
Das Evangelische Magazin, a sixty-four- 
page monthly with a Sunday-school de- 
partment; Der Christliche Kinderfreund, 
an eight-page weekly; Vuierteljahrsheft 
fuer Bibelklassen; Vierteljahrsheft fuer 
Mittelklassen; Vierteljahrsheft fuer das 
Heim Departement; and Laemmerweide, 
a four-page weekly for primary classes. 
The aggregate number of subscriptions is 


262,500. H. A. Kramer. 


EVANGELISM THROUGH EDUCA- 
TION.—The church has always known 
that one of her tasks is to save the lost. 
- Only within recent years has she recog- 
nized that her supreme task is to save the 
loss. The latter is vastly more difficult— 
and important. Only thus will the King- 
dom ever fully come. Adult conversion 
can never accomplish it. The world’s 
birth rate is many times the conversion 
rate, and increases more rapidly. The 
kingdom of God will come only when the 
church learns how to conserve unspoiled 
the boundless potentialities suggested in 
Christ’s words, “Of such is the kingdom 
of heaven.” For this the Sunday school 
furnishes the superlative opportunity and 
Sunday-school evangelism, broadly con- 
ceived, the effective means. 

To urge that the production of Chris- 
tian character is the central purpose of 
the Sunday school is superfluous. All who 
are interested to read this article recog- 
nize that nothing less will justify, as no 
lower aim will continuously inspire the 


386 


- Master. 


Evangelism 


vast expenditure of time, talent, and toil, 
lavished upon this the most potent and 
hopeful of all modern religious organiza- 
tion. Y 
Principles. Successful evangelism in 
the Sunday school involves much. To 
master this finest.of all arts one must know 
the laws and methods of unfolding life— 
physical, mental, and spiritual. Ignorance 
of these, on the part of one who presumes 
to deal with the spiritual interests of chil- 
dren and youth, is unpardonable today, so 
accessible is the literature of the subject 
and so sacredly important are the issues 
involved. Here we can but mention cer- 
tain fundamental principles which should 
control all efforts to develop the religious . 
capacities of child life and bring the will 
to an intelligent choice of Christ: as 
Sunday-school evangelism, great 
as are its possibilities, has not been 
an unmixed good, because these principles 
have not been in all cases clearly appre- 
hended. An unwise, though sincere, en- 
thusiast may work more harm in a single 
so-called Decision Day than can be reme- 
died in a generation. A sincere enthusi- 
asm for the spiritual welfare of the chil- 
dren in those who are intrusted with their 
care is priceless, and no one not thus 
moved should be honored with so sacred 
a charge. But no motive, however good, 
in the physician of the body can be con- 
sidered a substitute for knowledge and 
skill, Much less should it be in the phy- 
sician of the soul. A resolute determina- 
tion to master the principles involved in 
the religion of the unfolding life should 
possess the soul of every worker in the 
Sunday school. In broadest and briefest 
outline these principles are: 
First. The inalienable right of every 
child to be considered a member of the 
Kingdom of God. The church cannot give 
this right. It can only do what Christ 
did—recognize and sanction it. Any 
theology which attempts to deal with the 
child otherwise is, to say the least, not 
of Christ. Therefore, in the earlier years 
evangelism can only take the form of as- 
suming that the child already belongs to 
Christ, and of placing the emphasis upon 
the privilege of actively obeying and 
pleasing him. The primary and guiding 
aim of Sunday-school evangelism should 
be the normal development of the child’s 
religious instincts, so that no break may 





Evangelism 


occur in his conscious desire and effort 
to serve Christ. This is imperative not 
only from the standpoint of the truth in 
the case, but also from the standpoint of 
the normal child mind. To suggest to 
the child that he is an alien to God, and 
that some great change must take place 
in his own heart before he is really God’s 
child, plants the first seeds of artificiality 
and irreligion and gives him at the very 
beginning of his religious development a 
totally false conception of Christianity. 
For this reason the younger children 
should not be present when the evangel- 
istic appeal is made in the Sunday school 
to those of riper years, where the need of 
conversion may be legitimately empha- 
sized. This suggests: 

Second. The Principle of adaptation, 
which must be observed in all safe and 
effective Sunday-school evangelism. What 
is good and necessary for one period of 
development may be positively harmful 
for another. Hach age has its own char- 
acteristics spiritually as well as intellec- 
tually. The religion of the young child 
is naturalistic and reflexive. Ideas of God 
are predominantly materialistic through- 
out childhood, seldom becoming spiritual- 
ized before eleven or twelve. ‘The sense 
of personal responsibility to God, the fully 
developed idea of right and wrong, the 
clear notion of spirituality, and the sense 
of sin, come in the first years of adoles- 
cence. The deepening sense of personal 
obligation to God, the. power to reason 
and the consequent tendency to question 
all that has thus far been learned, the 
rapid growth of the critical spirit, and 
the increasing sense of personal inde- 
pendence and freedom of choice, all these 
characterize adolescence in the middle 
period, the natural time for decision. 
These differences must be kept in mind 
when religious appeal is being made. At 
such times the departments should be 
separated. When this is impossible the 
public appeal should be in general terms 
. that will accord with the characteristics 
of all periods and the specific appeal made 
individually. It should be kept in mind 
that there are great changes even within 
the period of any given department, par- 
ticularly that of the Juniors from nine to 
twelve. Moreover, it should be remem- 
bered that each stage brings its own pre- 
_ cious opportunity to produce religious im- 


387 


Evangelism 


pressions and purpose, and, if neglected, 
is lost forever. 

Third. The principle of adaptation 
must be applied to individuals as well as 
groups. “Personal evangelism” is a term 
usually applied to individual work among 
adults. But, if there is any place where 
it is needed more than another, it is 


among children and in early adolescence. 


Varying influences of heredity, tempera- 
ment, environment, home atmosphere and 
training, natural abilities, make each child 
different from every other. What may be 
essential for one child may be exceedingly 
harmful for another in exactly the same 
period of development. Children are un- 
able to adapt religious truth to their own 
needs or spiritual conditions, as are adults, 
and are therefore at the mercy of their 
leaders and teachers. It is imperative for 
best results that the individual child be 
known to the one who tries to lead the 
way to religious purpose and experience. 
The pastor and superintendent should 
know the children. The teacher, who 
knows the pupil better than any other, 
should be utilized in the evangelistic work 
of the school as largely as possible. 
Fourth. That religious consciousness 
is a development must be kept constantly 
in mind. Time is as necessary as the 
proper soil for the perfect fruitage. “First 
the blade, then the ear, then the full corn 
in the ear.” The worker should know 
what to expect at any given age and what 
is abnormal. T'o urge religious expression 
which belongs to a later period or a totally 
different temperament is the beginning of 
hypocrisy and skepticism. Suddenness of 
religious purpose may be sought in riper 
years, but it has no place normally in 
childhood and early youth. The indolent 
method of depending upon a so-called 
Decision Day to do the whole task of pro- 
ducing conscious normal discipleship is 
both ignorant and wicked, as well as inef- 
fective. Long before a decision day in 
the accepted sense is possible it ought to 
have been rendered largely unnecessary. 
Witness day, wisely conducted, may be 
helpful at any period. Decision Day is 
not a child’s affair and should come not 
before early adolescence, when the storm 
and stress period is approaching, with 
its natural tendencies to break with the 
past. In this period Decision Day may 
afford the youth the opportunity he needs 


Evangelism 


to assert for himself the principles he has 
heretofore accepted from others — and 
enter a deeper and more conscious per- 
sonal relationship with Christ. 

Fifth. Religious development during 
the teens means far more for the perfect- 
ing of the life in adult years than any 
equal period after the teens. To leave 
the Sunday school without a definitely 
Christian life-purpose not only reduces 
to a minimum the pupil’s chances of find- 
ing Christ, but he has lost forever some- 
thing which no later experience can bring. 
For example, however great one’s musical 
capacities may be, to miss the period when 
both mind and body are most rapidly de- 
veloping is to render the greatest develop- 
ment of the capacity forever impossible. 
The spiritual capacities obey the same law. 
There is, therefore, a double responsibility 
upon the Sunday-school worker—to pro- 
duce Christian character and to produce 
it at the period when it means most for 
the life of the individual and the world. 

Siath. It is of greatest importance 
that the Christian life of the youth in 
the middle and later adolescent period 
should be of a positive character. This 
does not mean after any particular tem- 
peramental type, but that it should be a 
consciously controlling force. The old 
method of evangelism, which considered 
the child an alien to the Kingdom until by 
a definite experience of conversion he was 
brought from death unto life, had grave 
errors and is responsible for grievous 
losses; but it had one virtue. It had a 
tendency to produce an experience that 
was definite and unmistakable, to which 
witness could be borne, and which conse- 
quently wrought convictions that were 
imperishable, carrying the possessor into 
active service. The problem of modern 
evangelism, as it relates to childhood and 
youth, is to produce conviction as deep 
and individual religious consciousness as 
unmistakable. This is the most difficult 
task of the modern pastor and Sunday- 
school worker. But it is the most impor- 
tant. Upon such rock alone can he build 
his church. The failure to produce this 
virile type of religious life, which is will- 
ing to serve and sacrifice and suffer, is 
the greatest peril of Christian nurture 
and educational evangelism. 

Methods. In the strict sense, methods 
should be as varied as the individuals. 


388 


Evangelism 


There can be no universal method for 
work so vital and personal. The need of 
an intimate knowledge of the individuals 
to be won, and the great difficulty of the 
task as a whole may, and not infrequently 
does, lead to hesitancy and neglect on the 
part of leaders. The work is indeed 
delicate, and of vast importance, and 
errors may be fatal. Every child needs 
and deserves a master hand. But the 
work must be done, and master workmen 
are made by doing it. Actual practice, 
and ultimate sympathetic touch with 
young life, are as essential in learning this 
finest of all arts as a knowledge of the 
laws of the unfolding life. Appropriate 
and effective methods will suggest them- — 
selves as the pastor and teacher become 
more intimately acquainted with individ- 
uals. Certain. well-tried methods, how- 
ever, may be suggested here, to be modi- 
fied as local conditions and individual 
characteristics may demand. 

1. Public Decision Day may be men- 
tioned first, not because it is first in im- 
portance or effectiveness, but because it 
is the most familiar method. Properly 
conducted it is, in the adolescent period, 
of great value, and furnishes the oppor- 
tunity for the normal exercise of the 
power of moral choice, which develops — 
rapidly at this period. In unwise hands 
it is a grave menace. The precipitation 
of a decision day upon an unprepared 
school, or upon the lower grades, inducing 
premature and hasty religious expression, 
through overwrought emotions on the 
part of many—to be followed by insuffi- 
cient attention to training—is one of the 
most baneful exercises of the modern 
church. It is certain to result in reaction, | 
due to a sense of unreality, from which 
many will never recover. It will justify 
a new group of parents in their solicitous 
but ignorant claim, that the youth of the 
middle teens “is not old enough to know 
what he is doing.” A decision day of 
this type should never be permitted in 
any school, or department. The wise 
pastor will never allow the professional 
evangelist to appeal to his Sunday school 
unless he knows intimately the man and 
his methods, and knows exactly what he 
proposes to do on any particular occasion. 
The call for public decision to follow 
Christ should not be permitted below the 
Junior Department, and even this depart- 


Evangelism 


ment needs a totally different appeal from 
that presented in the Intermediate and 
Senior. Among the Juniors there should 
be no segregation, and no intimation that 
those who do not respond to the appeal, as 
may be desired, are thus rejecting Christ 
or the Christian life. To permit this is 
the surest method of causing such a rejec- 
tion on the one hand, or of producing 
insincerity of action on the other. The 
sense of personal responsibility to God is 
necessary to intelligent conviction and 
decision, and this sense does not normally 
develop in strength till the end of the 
Junior period and the beginning of ado- 
lescence. Conscience and the idea of moral 
law are likewise rapidly developing at this 
period. Whatever appeal is made; there- 
fore, to the pre-adolescent, should be 
rather in the form of a preparation for 
a more personal and final decision at a 
later period. Public manifestation of 
decision during the Junior period, when 
it is required, should be conducted with 
great care and skill. The child tendency 
to do what others do is still strong. It 
is better to present in a correct and at- 
tractive way the privilege and obligation 
of discipleship—. e., entering Christ’s 
great school as learners—and then allow 
the expression of desire and purpose to 
be made privately to teacher, pastor or 
friend. 

Below the Juniors it should be assumed 
always that all are trying to follow the 
Great Teacher, and the public address 
should take the form of instruction and 
encouragement. 

The Intermediate Department, reaching 
from thirteen to sixteen or seventeen, 
covers the natural age of decision. Per- 
sonal freedom and moral choice have 
been attained. ‘The youth has learned 
how to act for himself in response to the 
sense of right and personal obligation to 
Christ. He can safely be asked to signify 
his decision in a public way. Usually, it 
is best that he should, especially in middle 
and later adolescence. 

Thorough preparation should be made 
for Decision Day. Pastor, superintend- 
ents, and teachers should have meetings 
for conference, instruction and prayer. 
The plan should be quite definite, and 
every teacher should clearly understand 
what is expected and be in sympathy with 
the plan. The personal work should be 


389 


Evangelism 


done before the day arrives, by personal 
and private conversations, or by letter 
where this is impossible. Personal solici- 
tation at the public service is apt to pro- 
duce harmful rather than helpful results. 
Contrary to the opinion of some well 
known Sunday-school workers, the writer 
strongly believes that the school should 
know of the approach of the day. Abso- 
lute frankness is the only thing that wins 
with the adolescent. Anything that savors 
of planning or of surprise puts him on 
his guard, and rightly. There should be 
frequent mention of the day as it ap- 
proaches; the fullest explanations of the 
purpose of the day; explicit and simple 
statement of the essence of the Christian 
life and of the inestimable advantages 
of an early beginning; prayer in the 
school as the day approaches for God’s 
special blessing; a clear understanding 
that no one will be embarrassed (which 
pledge must be scrupulously kept). By 
these and other means the pupil is helped 
to make deliberate and thoughtful deci- 
sion, 

Some special day has greater appeal, 
such as the last or first Sunday of the 
year, Palm Sunday or Easter. Ample 
time should be given the service. It must 
not appear hurried, but the address should 
be short, simple and straightforward. An 
atmosphere of reverence, but of cheerful- 
ness, should prevail. The songs should be 
carefully selected to help, and the prayers 
should be especially tender and full of 
sympathy. The ordinary business and 
announcements should be eliminated. It 
should be recognized in the appeal that 
some have already definitely begun their 
discipleship, that others have from child- 
hood followed Christ—which is ideal— 
and that for these the day means only 
an opportunity to witness for Christ and 
deepen their purpose. The most effective 
method for decision is perhaps by cards 
upon which a simple but comprehensive 
statement of purpose is printed, these 
having been distributed to all at least a 
week beforehand. On the day appointed 
these are signed by all who have at any 
time decided, and by all who will then 
decide, to follow Christ. This avoids the 
painful conspicuousness which boys of the 
adolescent age dread. The cards should 
be signed in duplicate; one to be kept 
by the pupil, and the other given to the 


Evangelism 


teacher, who should be kept prominent in 
all work which concerns the religious life 
of the pupil. 

Decision Day is safe and effective in 
any school in the measure in which the 
spirit of evangelism is persistent and per- 
vasive throughout the year. It grows less 
safe as this decreases and less needed as 
it increases. 

2. The method most highly to be com- 
mended is that in which decisions are con- 
stantly sought by teacher, superintendent 
and pastor, and are constantly being 
announced. ‘This atmosphere alone can 
make decisions seem the normal and ex- 
pected thing to the adolescent mind; this 
alone will keep first things first; will in- 
duce the proper spirit of reverence and 
worship in the school; will meet and sat- 
isfy the normal craving of the heart in 
the adolescent period, and fulfill the obli- 
gations due from pastor and teacher to 
those intrusted to their care. 

This can be done. It requires a corps 
of officers and teachers who not only truly 
discern the highest purpose of Sunday- 
school work, but who have consecrated 
themselves to that work. It can only 
be done on a basis of personal relation- 
ships. At this age religious impulses and 
desires are clearly linked with the desire 
for friendship. A teacher or pastor who 
is a trusted confidant and friend is the 
need of the growing life, and such a rela- 
tionship can almost invariably result in 
Christian purpose and character if the 
effort is sufficiently sincere and persistent. 
For this reason there should be no change 
of teachers after the beginning of adoles- 
cence until well past the middle adoles- 
cent period, except it be to eliminate in- 
competence. It should be planned that 
each pupil not yet committed to Christ 
should be seen in private conference by 
the adult nearest to him and in whom he 
has greatest faith—not once but as often 
as seems wise, as he is developing. This 
should not seem planned to the pupil, but 
spontaneous, and it should always be in- 
spired by genuine sympathetic interest. 
Much of the resistance to the Christian 
appeal grows out of personal difficulties, 
misconception of the Christian life and 
false notions of what is expected. These 
will never be discovered except by the 
trusted friend in confidence. When the 
decision is obtained it may be noticed 


390 


Evangelism 


in the school in some manner, both for 
the individual’s sake and for its influence 
upon the school. 

3. If the pastor has established close 
relations with the school, creating not only 
confidence in him, but a feeling of per- 
sonal friendship for him, it will be found 
quite effective for him to visit each class 
and talk familiarly for a few minutes 
about the Christian life, what it is, its 
great benefits for life, the need of an early 
beginning, but making no personal appli- 
cation to any one in the class, and not 
at that time stating how to begin—re- 
marking as he departs that if any one 
wishes to know more about the Christian 
life, and the way to begin, to come to him, 
or to write to him, or speak to the teacher. 
This makes strong appeal to the youth, 
bringing the pastor very close to his per- 
sonal need in a way that does not embar- 
rass. ‘This method has been used with ~ 
great effectiveness. 

4, It is most desirable that the pastor 
should come into close touch with every 
member of the school, and especially to 
those passing through the teens. This 
cannot be done adequately in class alone, 
but it will prove an aid of inestimable 
value for the pastor to take each class 
graduating from the Junior and Inter- 
mediate departments, for a series of 
four to six weeks each, at the Sunday- 
school hour, before they are promoted 
to the next department, giving these 
periods to a study of the Christian . 
life. There is no more fruitful method 
of producing intelligent decision, if 
rightly conducted. The leader of this 
class should know as much as possible 
about each individual beforehand, and 
should strive to have a personal conversa- 
tion with each one not yet definitely com- 
mitted to Christ, especially those in the 
Intermediate Department. The chances 
for conversion grow rapidly less after the 
eighteenth year, therefore every wise 
means should be used to produce decision 
before the time the Senior Department 


is entered. Graduation may be at dif- 


ferent times in the departments to fur- 
ther this plan, unless there are competent 
leaders besides the pastor. ‘To the objec- 
tion that a number of the regular lessons 
will thus be missed, it may be replied that 
the aim of the school is not to complete 
a lesson system, but the production of 





Evangelism . 


Christian character, and no other use of 
a few sessions will effect as much. It has 
the virtue of dignifying it as a regular 
part of the Sunday-school course of study, 
and of insuring an attendance which can- 
not be procured at special meetings for 
this work. 

5. Letters written by teachers to 
pupils are of great value, but the pupils 
should not be permitted to feel that they 
are substitutes for personal conversation. 
The reasons for, and advantages of, be- 
ginning the Christian life, when clearly 
stated in a letter, often make deeper im- 
pression than by any other method—the 
letter being usually read under circum- 
stances where quiet thoughtfulness is pos- 
sible. The writing of a letter may con- 
vince the pupil of the teacher’s interest 
more effectively than conversation. 

6. It is of great importance in this 
work to keep in close touch with the 
parents. Jf they are in sympathy with 
it, they can render most effective aid by 
their attitude and codperation and should, 
therefore, be kept fully informed of any 
step that is to be or has been taken in 
relation to their children. If they are 
indifferent, it is almost certain to awaken 
in them a vital interest, if they are con- 
sulted concerning the efforts to help their 
boys and girls. If they are hostile, the need 
is the greater, for the sake of their chil- 
dren, to come into sympathetic relations 
with them, in order to disarm prejudice. 
Much of the opposition on the part of par- 
ents is due to ignorance or total misunder- 
standing of what is intended, or to the 
results of bungling work on the part of 
some one. Moreover, the lost sheep of the 
house of Israel are often won through the 
lambs of the flock. There is no point so 
tender in the heart of the worldly parent 
as the consciousness of responsibility for 
his influence upon his child. 

?7. Evangelism among the adults of 
the Sunday school is not the specific prob- 
lem of this article, and ‘is treated else- 
where, but the suggestion is in place here 
that no stronger appeal can be made to 
adults than can be made in the Adult 
Department of the Sunday school, occu- 
pying, as it does, the place of incalculable 
influence over the adolescent years. A 
school will do almost anything its Adult 
Department will do. But the appeal to 
adults upon this basis should never be 


391 


Evangelism 


made in the presence of other depart- 
ments. It is, however, of great value if 
the actual decision of adults can be made 
with the adolescents present, provided it 
be kept clear always that they have lost 
something by delay that can never be 
regained. 

8. This greatest work of the school 
should ‘find a place in the regular meet- 
ings of Sunday-school officers and teach- 
ers. It must be kept constantly to the 
front if the spirit is to be maintained in 
the school that will make the work either 
safe or effective. Special meetings should 
be held for the specific purpose of prop- 
erly planning for this work. In all regu- 
lar meeting where reports are given 
this should be one of the items never 
omitted. 

Many minor suggestions might be made 
without adding value to these. The ideal 
method is a combination of all good 
methods. After the most faithful use 
of all wise and effective means, there will 
still remain some who have not been won 
to Christ. There will always be the need 
for adult evangelism, but by ceaseless 
vigilance and tireless devotion the number 
who are won to Christ and Christian 
service at the ideal age can be vastly in- 
creased, and the inexpressible loss to the 
Kingdom, the church, and the individual, 
correspondingly lessened. 

The most important and difficult work 
has just begun when the decisions are 
obtained. Neglect thereafter is criminal. 
Shameful loss is not infrequently found 
at this point. Both teacher and pastor 
should for weeks give special attention to 
those who have newly chosen to follow 
Christ. They should be carefully in- 
structed in the fundamentals of the Chris- 
tian life, sympathized with and helped in 
their difficulties and problems, trained for 
church membership, and given something 
to do as an expression of their Christian 
purpose. ‘T’his work is best done individ- 
ually. This requires time, but there is 
no other investment of time that pays 
such dividends for the Kingdom. In any 
case there must be ample opportunity for 
the pupil to meet the pastor as well as 
the teacher in private, not officially, but 
as friends, where the unfolding life can 
find sympathetic help in its individual 
needs and difficulties. 

The less personal elements of training 


Examinations 


may be effected in groups of approxi- 
mately the same age, and as nearly as 
possible of the same general temperament, 
the sexes meeting separately in the Junior 


and higher grades. L. J. Birney. 


References: 

Koons, W. G. The Child’s Religious 
Life. (New York, 1903.) 

Lawrance, Marion. How to Conduct 
a Sunday School. Chap, XX. (New 
York, ¢c1905.) 

McKinley, C. E. Hducational Evan- 
gelism. (Boston, 1905.) 

Principles of Religious Education. 
Chap. VII. (New York, 1901.) 

Starbuck, E. D. Psychology of Re- 
ligion. Ed. 3. (New York, 1911.) 


EXAMINATIONS.—The function of 
the examination is threefold: (1) it con- 
stitutes a test of the pupil’s mastery of 
the subject and of his ability to go on 
to more advanced work; (2) it serves as 
a stimulus to more thorough study from 
week to week; (3) it supplies a motive for 
final review and helps the pupil to gather 
up the points made in a series of lessons, 
to place them in right relation and to 
organize them into a systematic and co- 
herent whole. 

1. The first of these functions is the 
least important. A teacher should be able 
without an examination to tell what prog- 
ress his pupil has been making and 
whether or not he is prepared to advance 
to other tasks. It is as a stimulus to 
thorough work and to the final organiza- 
tion of ideas that the examination is of 
such real service that it ought seldom to 
be dispensed with. Bagley says, speaking 
of public school work: “The virtue of 
the examination les in its power to force 
strenuous mental effort to the task of 
organizing a large body of facts and prin- 
ciples into a coherent system. This is the 
standard by which examination questions 
should be set. They should be large and 
comprehensive, so formulated that they 
will bring out and exercise, not the mem- 
ory for details, but the capacity to grasp 
large masses of knowledge and weld the 
separate facts and principles into system- 
atic unities.” In this respect the final 
purpose of the examination is identical 
with that of the review (gq. v.). 

Examinations are of value in another 


392 


Examinations 


important respect that is often overlooked. 
They constitute a test of the teacher’s 
work. If any large proportion of a 
teacher’s pupils are unable creditably to 
pass an examination, assuming of course 
that the questions are fair and adequate, 
it is evidence that there has been some- 
thing wrong with the teaching. A careful 
study of just where his pupils failed will 
reveal to that teacher, not only what gaps 
he must fill in their knowledge of the 
subject, but just where in future he may 
better his presentation and in what re- 
spects improve his method. 

2. Since these are the functions of the 
examination, it is as much needed in the 
Sunday school as in the public school. 
Indeed, it is more needed. The public 
school is able to secure thorough work by 
methods of compulsion which the Sun- 
day school cannot use; it has far more 
time at its disposal for day by day drill 
and review; its curriculum is better stand- 
ardized, its teachers better trained—for 
all of which reasons it might more easily 
than the Sunday school dispense with the 
examinations and yet maintain a high 
standard of work. 

Many Sunday-school superintendents 
and teachers fear to introduce examina- 
tions lest they drive pupils from the 
school. But this result need not follow, 
if the examinations are rightly conducted. 
They should be optional. All pupils 
should be encouraged to take them, but 
none compelled to do so. They should be 
as frequent as the formal review, and 
cover the same ground. The review will 
thus be more thorough, and the pupils 
will become accustomed to taking exam- 
inations, so that most of them will not 
fear to take a final examination covering 
the whole year’s work. The questions 
should be fair and worth while, not asking 
for minor or obscure details, but rather 
constituting points of view that help to 
a true perspective and to the right or- 
ganization of the pupil’s ideas. 

One excellent method of examination 
is to give to pupils a set of such ques- 
tions on one Sunday and to ask them to 
write out answers’at home which they will 
hand in on the following Sunday, the 
understanding being that they may go for 
the answers to the Bible or to any source of 
information other than the help of another 
person, provided they specify in the papers 





Examinations 


their authority for facts so gained. An- 
other method is to give out a large num- 
ber of questions—twenty-five to fifty— 
with the announcement that on the follow- 
ing Sunday an examination will be con- 
ducted, at which pupils will be asked to 
write, without assistance of any sort, an- 
swers to four or five questions which shall 
be chosen by the teacher from this num- 
ber. Under these conditions they will 
study the whole set and so be guided in a 
thorough review. If the pupils are 
mature enough and faithful enough, the 
burden of preparation for the examina- 
tion may be thrown upon them and the 
examination conducted without any pre- 
vious issuing of questions. In that case 
it is best to offer some option, giving a 
set of ten questions, for example, and 
requiring each pupil to answer six, choos- 
ing for himself which they shall be. 

The questions should of course be suited 
to the maturity of the class. Hxamina- 
tions may be given with success to pupils 
of any age above eight or nine. As soon 
as boys and girls are able to write easily 
and have become accustomed to examina- 
tions in public school, they are ready for 
examinations in Sunday school as well. 

3. A great part of the virtue of an ex- 
amination lies in its formal character. 
For that reason written examinations are 
to be preferred to oral quizzes. If the 
sole function of the examination were to 
test the information of the pupils for the 
benefit of the teacher, it would be better 
that it should be informal and unexpected. 
But if the examination is to serve as a 
stimulus and incentive to more thorough 
and complete work, the pupil must feel 
its importance. The teacher should do all 
that he can in order to make the examina- 
tion something of an occasion. It should 
be announced at some time previously ; it 
should be carefully administered and 
supervised; the papers should be graded 
with scrupulous fairness; and recogni- 
tion of some sort should be given to those 
who pass creditably—a report sent to par- 
ents, a list announced or posted, promo- 
tion to a higher class, a certificate given 
for each year’s work passed, or a diploma 
at the completion of a course covering sev- 
eral years. ‘The pupil’s full grade, how- 
ever, should not depend on the examina- 
tion. It should be made up on the basis 
of the classroom work, the notebook or 


393 


Exhibits 


other routine written work, and the ex- 
amination, 

The teacher ought always to read and 
grade the papers before the next meeting 
of the class. Then, if the full benefit of 
the examination is to be realized, there 
should be a free discussion of the ques- 
tions. Such a discussion is both more 
economical and far more satisfactory in 
result than correcting and handing back 
the papers. It is a golden opportunity 
for final review. On the one hand the 
pupils are eager and interested to know 
how well they have succeeded; on the 
other hand their answers have revealed 
to the teacher what misconceptions need 
correcting and what gaps need filling, in 
order that the work of the term may be 
brought to its perfect conclusion. 

L, A. WEIGLE. 


EXHIBITS, CHILD WELFARE.—Srx 
CHILD WELFARE EXHIBITs. 


EXHIBITS, SUNDAY-SCHOOL.—Ex- 
hibits of Sunday-school material began 
with the work of the New York Sunday 
School Commission in 1900. Before that 
time, all Sunday-school exhibits partook 
of the nature of professional trade dis- 
plays, where space was sublet to various 
denominational publishers in connection 
with Sunday-school conventions and insti- 
tutes. The New York Sunday School 
Commission opened an exhibit in connec- 
tion with their Sunday School Convention 
of the Episcopal Church, at the Cathedral 
of New York city. This exhibit was ar- 
ranged by subjects without regard to pub- 
lishers. The Exhibit was mounted on 
regulation sized cards—each form, blank, 
lesson book, object, and device, etc., being 
tabulated according to its nature and use, 
so that visitors could select the articles 
best suited to their needs from more than 
260 various publishers. 

This Exhibit then numbered about 
3,000 pieces. It soon grew to 9,000 
pieces and was exhibited, in toto, in 
Philadelphia, Pa., at a large Convention 
of the Religious Education Association 
(g. v.). The following year it had grown 
to 11,000 pieces and was exhibited at the 
Religious Education Association conven- 
tion in Boston, Mass. Subsequently, in 
190%, this Exhibit of 19,000 pieces was 
displayed for two months in Richmond, 


Exhibits 


Va.; and, in 1910 (numbering then 26,- 
000 pieces), in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was 
also shown for a month in Teachers Col- 
lege, Columbia University, New York 
city. 

This Exhibit has established a stand- 
ard for Sunday-school exhibits of this 
type. The Religious Education Associa- 
tion has exhibits of this kind now to 
which publishers send review material, 
realizing that it will be displayed and 
will stand or fall on its merits. The 
exhibit goes into its own place in the gen- 
eral tabulation of materials. 

The Rev. Franklin P. Elmer, of the 
Religious Education Association, has an 
extensive exhibit of several thousand 
pieces which is on permanent display in 
Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and has been shown 
at various centers. Many similar exhibits 
exist, such as exhibits in various dioceses 
of the Episcopal Church (notably west- 
ern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Chi- 
cago, Ill.; Richmond, Los Angeles, San 
Francisco, Cal., etc.), which are displayed 
at local conventions, 

It has become quite the custom to 
gather small exhibits of several hun- 
dred or a thousand necessary articles of 
the best type, to be displayed at local 
conventions in leading centers. (See 
S. 8. Council of Evangelical Denomina- 
tions.) The New York Exhibit, which 
is on permanent display at the Episcopal 
headquarters, 73 Fifth avenue, New York 
city, now numbers nearly 29,000 pieces, 
and is visited annually by more than 30,- 
000 persons. Such exhibits go a great 
way toward forming public opinion along 
the line of advanced ideals, for the best 
materials are now placed in conspicuous 
display and, if catalogued, are starred to 
indicate their higher quality. ‘There are 
nearly 350 publishing houses in the 
United States, Canada and England, 
which are drawn upon for material of 
religious education—all of high quality. 
The plan of exhibiting all articles, and yet 
emphasizing the best, has during the past 
few years resulted in the elimination of 
several thousand articles of the poorer 
sort. (See Library, The S. 8.) 

W. W. SMITH. 

“Up Through Childhood” is the title 
of an exhibit of religious education pre- 
pared by the Educational Department of 
the Congregational Sunday School and 


394 


Ex-Scholars Committee 


Publishing Society, Boston, Mass., for the 
meeting of the National Council at Kansas 
City, Mo., in 1913. The exhibit consists 
of sixty screens, each three feet by six in — 
size, and each relating to a distinct group 
of ages or a specific type of educational 
activity. It attempts to set forth by 
means of photographs: 1. Child life as tt 
really is, revealing spontaneous interests 
and activities. 2. Tendencies of develop- 
ment, both good and bad, suggesting the 
need and the method of religious educa- 
tion. 3. The materials and processes of 
education in religion, as illustrated in the 
home, in Sunday school, on the play- 
ground, in clubs and camps, in mission 
study classes, in the church service of 
worship, in the recreation center, the 
Y. M. C. A., the Young People’s society, 
etc. 4. Some results of religious educa- 
tion, as evident in the daily life and activ- 
ities, and even in the facial expression of 
boys and girls. 5. The urgent need of 
comprehensive planning by the churches 
for an intensive and thoroughly effective 
work in religious education. 

The exhibit is intended to be suggestive 
to parents and teachers, and other persons 
engaged in or interested in any form of 
religious or moral education. The mate- 
rials included in this exhibit are over one 
hundred and fifty photographs, showing 
children and youth of both sexes and all 
ages, engaged in a great variety of activ- 
ities and occupations, all of which have 
some bearing, for good or ill, upon their 
moral and religious life. Facts tersely 
expressed, interpreting the significance of 
the pictures. Charts, giving valuable con- 
clusions from extensive investigations. 
Summaries of available lesson courses, 
equipment and methods for use in reli- 
gious education. In addition to the 
screens, lesson material, leaflets, books, 
furniture, and equipment appropriate for 
use with the ages represented are also ex- 
hibited. 


EXPRESSIONAL ACTIVITIES.—Srr 
ACTIVITY AND ITs PLACE IN RELIGIOUS 
EpucaTION ; CURRICULUM FOR RELIGIOUS 
InstrucTION; SocraL ASPECTS OF RELI- 
gious AND Moran EpucaTion; SocraL 
SERVICE AND THE S. S. 


EX-SCHOLARS EMPLOYMENT COM- 
MITTEE (ENGLAND).—The care of the 


Ex-Scholars Committee 


child is, or should be, the nation’s chief 
concern. ‘The nation of to-morrow de- 
pends upon the child of to-day. Un- 
less the child is well cared for and care- 
fully trained, the nation’s greatness will 
soon be “one with Nineveh and Tyre.” 
As wealth accumulates there is, perhaps, 
a natural tendency for society to become 
decadent and for ease and luxury to lapse 
into sensuality and to take the place of 
that strenuous endeavor which made the 
nation great. The nation that cares for 
its future will care for its children—for 
their environment and their education. 

The critical years of life are from four- 
teen to seventeen with boys, and, perhaps, 
a year earlier with girls. It often appears, 
however, that care and insight are lack- 
ing just when most needed. (See Adoles- 
cence and its Significance; Boy, Problem 
of Training the.) Continuation schools 
and other voluntary agencies are provided ; 
but those needing them most are least 
likely to be attracted by them. The Brit- 
ish Government, through its Board of 
Education, has now made itself responsi- 
ble in a measure for the “after care” 
of its boys and girls; though, so far, the 
legislation has only been permissive, it is 
much that the principle has been recog- 
nized, and more legislation must surely 
follow. Local authorities are now form- 
ing “after care” committees in association 
with the Education Committee and the 
Board of Trade through the Labor Ex- 
change. These “after care’ committees 
select a number of ladies and gentlemen 
who are specially interested in the welfare 
of young people, who when a child leaves 
school undertake to see both the child and 
the parents with a view to make sure that 
the situation, if obtained, is a suitable one, 
and not one of the “blind-alley” class. 
If no place has been found for the child, 
advice and help are proffered, and in 
addition, the helper undertakes to keep in 
touch with the child, and to report prog- 
ress from time to time during the critical 
period of the young worker’s life. The 
need for sympathetic oversight is very 
great. 

It is estimated that the education which 
a boy receives at school costs the com- 
munity one hundred pounds, but the ques- 
tion is “What shall he do with it?” 
because, in far too many cases he seems 
anxious to be rid of the burden as soon 


395 


Ex-Scholars Committee 


as possible, and the one thought of the 
parents seems to be to put the child into 
some employment which appears to 
promise an immediate monetary return, 
without any thought as to whether the em- 
ployment is likely to be permanent or 
temporary, whether it will lead to a future 
of promise, or is of that type which will 
leave the lad of sixteen. or seventeen with- 
out any power to earn a living, and who be- 
comes a source of weakness rather than of 
strength to the country, and a menace 
rather than a safeguard to its security. 
The English nation has at last awakened 
to the situation. 

The scheme of work in a large Midland 
town will illustrate the way in which the 
Ex-Scholars Committee proceeds. A cen- 
tral Committee is formed by the union of 
members and officials of the Education 
Committee, with the officials of the Ju- 
venile Labor Exchange; the selection of a 
number of ladies and gentlemen represent- 
ing various organizations responsible for 
the care of young people, such as the Sun- 
day School Union, Boys’ Brigade, Boy 
Scouts, Girl Guides, and the like, the head- 
masters and mistresses of most of the 
elementary schools of the town, the em- 
ployers of labor and employees who are 
represented by members of various trade 
unions. The Committee meets quarterly 
and discusses various matters of general 
interest in connection with juvenile em- 
ployment. A smaller Executive Commit- 
tee consisting of twenty-one members 
meets every month, 

The town is mapped out into twenty- 
one areas. In each area the number of ele- 
mentary pupils in attendance at the in- 
cluded schools is as nearly equal as pos- 
sible. In connection with each district a 
District Committee is formed with a mem- 
ber of the Executive as Chairman. The 
headmaster of each elementary school 
sends to the Labor Exchange a list of the 
children leaving the school, supplying par- 
ticulars as to the child’s character, intelli- 
gence and home influences. The names are 
in three classes: “A” needs little or no 
oversight ; “B” needs some oversight; “C” 
needs much oversight. The children are 
seen by some members of the District 
Committee, and among the questions asked 
are: “Do you attend any Sunday school? 
or Boys’ Brigade?” “Are you a Boy 
Scout?” The answer is usually the name 


Extension Work 


of some Sunday school, whereupon the in- 
formation is sent through the Sunday 
School Union to the teacher in that school 
in whose class the boy happens to be, and 
the teacher is asked to become the boy’s 
“helper” and to keep in touch with him 
during the adolescent years, and from time 
to time to report the boy’s progress to the 
Labor Exchange. It is part of the “help- 
er’s” duty to encourage the boy to attend 
some evening school, or the Technical or 
Art School, as the needs of his work de- 
mand, and also to apply to the Labor Ex- 
change should a change of position be de- 
sirable. 

The bearing of this important work 
upon that of the Sunday school is appar- 
ent. It is a personal gain to the Sunday- 
school teacher to have a definite piece of 
work to do on behalf of any of his pupils 
in order to bring him into contact with 
them during the week, as they meet for 
so short a time on Sunday. “The waste 
in the teacher’s workshop is the lives of 
men” was written of day school teaching, 
but may be applied also to the teaching in 
the Sunday school. The enormous waste 
in the Sunday school is well known and 
deplored and any plan is welcomed that 
promises to reduce the loss. 

Let the boy feel that the teacher has a 
real interest in his welfare outside of the 
Sunday school, and much will be done to 
establish sympathetic and helpful rela- 
tions between the Sunday-school teacher 
and the pupil. This will tend to the solu- 
tion of a great national problem, and will 
help onward the Kingdom of God. 

G. C. TuRNER. 


EXTENSION WORK IN BIBLE 
STUDY.—Sre American INSTITUTE OF 
SACRED LITERATURE; BIBLICAL INSTRUC- 
TION BY CORRESPONDENCE; RELIGIOUS 
PEDAGOGY IN COLLEGES AND THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARIES; UNIvErsIty EXTENSION 
Lectures For 8. 8. TreacHers; Y. M. 
GC. A. anp THE’ §.'8.: Yo Wy 0.’ AL ann 
BIBLE STUDY. 


EXTRA-BIBLICAL STUDIES.—In con- 
sidering a proposal for extra-Biblical 
studies four questions need to be dealt 
with—First, the question of the rightness, 
desirability and wisdom of introducing 
such studies at all into Sunday schools 
and Bible classes, If that question is 


396 


Extra-Biblical Studies 


answered in the negative nothing more 
can be said on the subject. If, however, 
we are justified in the attempt, we have to 
ask in the second place what these studies 
should be. Thirdly, there is the question 
of their distribution among the different 
grades of the school. Fourthly, the ques- 
tion of ways and means; how is the req- 
uisite information to be obtained and 
communicated ? 

1. The question of rightness, desirability 
and wisdom. If there were a proposal to 
depose the Bible from its supreme place 
as the head and fountain of Christian 
teaching there could be no doubt how this 


-should be dealt with. It would be treason 


to the Gospel message which is intrusted 
to the churches. To say that the wealth 
of truth contained in the Bible is ex- 
hausted, that we have learned all it has 
to tell us, would be almost equally wrong, 
for its riches are unfathomable. 

This being taken for granted, is it right 
and wise to introduce occasionally any 
subjects drawn from some other sources? 
To deny that it is right would seem to de- 
preciate nature, history, and human life 
generally. It would be an approach to 
the ancient Manichean heresy. For it 
would not only mean that we can find 
God’s truth adequately in the Bible, it 
would imply that we could not find it at all 
anywhere else, which would suggest that 
we live in a God-deserted universe, or at 
least that God never speaks through nature 
or human lives, that all is dark as 
midnight except for that one brilliant 
luminary the Bible. To say this, is to 
ignore “the light that lighteth every man” 
and to dishonor the revelations of creation 
and history. But while it may be right to 
look for traces of the Creator in his works 
and to see his hand in human history, is 
it wise and desirable to turn aside occa- 
sionally from the Bible for such studies in 
class teaching? ‘To this question two an- 
swers may be given. First, it is done © 
already. Most churches and schools do 
have lessons on some extra-Biblical sub- 
jects. There are temperance lessons and 
missionary lessons. Most Bible class pro- 
grams also contain titles of biographical, 
historical, sociological, ethical, and theo- 
logical subjects taken from extra-Biblical 
sources. It is not the initiation of the 
policy therefore which is under consider- 
ation, but the direction and regulation of 


Extra-Biblical Studies 


it. Hitherto it has been too haphazard; 
adopted here, ignored there. 

In the second place, good reasons may 
be brought forward for giving this branch 
' of teaching a definite, recognized place 
‘in the curriculum of Sunday schools and 
Bible classes—(1) For the sake of variety 
and novelty, and the interest it awakens. 
The Bible itself may come to the class as 
a fresher book if it is not always in the 
teacher’s hands. (2) To give breadth and 
richness to the teaching. (3) To illustrate 
and apply the truths of religion. The 
danger is that the religion of the Bible 
should be regarded as something remote 
from and alien to every-day life. Illus- 
trations of Christian truth in the common 
scenes of the world help to counteract that 
mistake. (4) To acknowledge the pres- 
ence of God in the whole world and 
throughout all time. A purely Biblical 
course may leave the impression that the 
Christian faith is altogether Palestinian 
and ancient. These other lessons should 
show it to be of universal application and 
for all ages. 

2. The Subjects of extra-Biblical 
Studies. If God is in the whole world 
and in all its life, inspiring all things good 
and true, one might assume that no sub- 
ject should be excluded, that every con- 
ceivable subject has its religious aspect or 
its ethical bearings on life and conduct. 
There are some subjects, however, that 
lend themselves more readily than others 
to Christian teaching. (1) Nature Study. 
Our Lord’s parables offer the finest ex- 
amples of this branch of study. He bade 
us consider the lilies, ravens, sheep, spar- 
rows, dogs, swine, asses, oxen, foxes, 
wheat, tares, mustard, leaven, vines, and 
fig trees—all came into His teaching. 
Natural theology is not the same to-day 
that it was before the rise of the doctrine 
of evolution. But in his Ascent of Man 
Professor Drummond showed how every 
doctrine might lead on to an enriched 
conception of God’s plans and purposes in 
his government of the world. (2) Hts- 
tory. Formerly a sharp line was drawn 
between sacred and profane history. The 
history of the Jews was sacred ; the history 
of the Greeks, Romans, and all other 
peoples was profane,, that is to say, not 
sacred, but purely secular. We are now 
coming to see that God is in all the world’s 
history. His hand was recognized in the 


397 


Extra-Biblical Studies 


history of Israel because that history was 
written by inspired prophets; it has been 
scarcely seen in our national story because 
this story has not been written by inspired 
prophets. If Isaiah had been the author 
of the Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire, we should have had something 
very different from Gibbon’s brilliant but 
scofing work. (3) Biography. Next to 
the Bible perhaps there are no books more 
worthy of study for the spiritual profit 
we may derive from them than well 
written biographical works. (See Biog- 
raphy, Place of, in Religious Education.) 
The lives of great and good men are in- 
spirations for our humble lives. 'T'o take 
the life stories of Charles Kingsley, Lord 
Shaftesbury, Norman McLeod, Frederic 
William Robertson, Henry Drummond 
(qg. v.) or of one of the missionaries— 
David Livingstone, Mackay of Uganda, 
Paton—is to have the subject for a most 
inspiring lesson. (4) Missions. These 
come into the lives of the missionaries. 
But they can also be studied in their sev- 
eral fields. How thrilling is the story of 
the martyr church in Madagascar, or the 
romance of the South Seas! How sad 
the African tale! How inspiring the pic- 
ture of awakened China! (5) Social 
problems.. These are pressing to-day with 
urgent insistency. One cannot ignore 
them ; one should not wish to ignore them. 
Here may be seen applied Christianity. 
The subject is most difficult and it re- 
quires to be in the hands of a strong 
teacher. The leader of an adult Bible 
class once complained that, no matter 
what subject he introduced, the conversa- 
tion always drifted into a discussion of 
socialism. What he required was a suffi- 
cient command of his class to make the 
members see that fundamental religious 
and moral principles rather than debat- 
able economic plans were the right topics 
for the occasion. (6) Hthical questions. 
These are closely connected with the fore- 
going group. But some of them have dis- 
tinctive characters of their own, such as 
the questions of temperance, gambling, 
personal purity, business honesty, family 
duties, duties of service to one’s neighbors, 
the town, the state. (7) Religious prob- 
lems. These are generally difficult. They 
call for the best and most highly educated 
teachers. But they demand to be faced 
devoutly, intelligently, frankly, fearlessly. 


Extra-Biblical Studies 


There are the questions of the inspiration 
of the Bible, the literary history of the 
Bible, the divinity of Jesus Christ; what 
His redemption of the world really is; the 
Christian life; the future beyond death; 
and many other theological problems. 
These matters lead back to the Bible 
again, for it is the Bible that throws the 
clearest light on them. Still, they, need 
not be approached in a directly Biblical 
way. They may be taken up as definite, 
concrete problems, each of them being re- 
garded in all its relations, and so discussed 
as great religious themes, not merely as 
texts of Scripture. 

3. The Distribution of these Subjects. 
The introduction of extra-Biblical sub- 
jects pre-supposes the grading of the 
schools. It is simply impossible without 
that arrangement. The difficulty of teach- 
ing a uniform series of Bible lessons 
throughout the whole school is serious 
enough; all enlightened educators are now 
convinced that it should be abandoned, 
and that separate Bible lessons severally 
adapted to the different mental capacities 
of the pupils of different ages should be 
substituted for the mechanical system of 
the old International Lessons. But when 
one considers such subjects as have just 
been enumerated the necessity of grading 
becomes quite obvious. Some of these 
subjects would be above the grasp of 
young children, and yet these are the very 
subjects that might best awaken and re- 
tain the interest of older students, and 
prove most profitable to them. The selec- 
tion may be carried even further. Some 
subjects which now come well within the 
grasp of a group of educated young people 
would be absolutely unintelligible to pu- 
pils of the same age in the mission school 
of a down-town church, or in a country 
village sleepily indifferent to the fierce 
problems that agitate life in the great 
centers of population. ‘Then there are 
questions most suitable for young men’s 
classes, others that would be more useful 
for classes of young women. Therefore, 
extra-Biblical subjects should be divided 
into different groups and assigned sever- 
ally to different classes of pupils. 

I. Primary Department. In the Pri- 
mary Department the nature studies are 
already acclimatized. There is a charm 
and freshness about them that wonder- 
fully brightens up the whole teaching, in 


398 


Extra-Biblical Studies 


striking contrast to the monotony of the 
old infant class method. A caution on 
this point, however, seems to be called for. 
There is some danger lest these nature 
studies should be pursued too much on 
their own account. No doubt they are 
good in themselves. It is a most excellent 
thing for a child to come to observe and 
love the many beautiful and wonderful 
objects he sees in the world around him. 
The study is wholesome, enlarging, and 
elevating. Young children instinctively 
love natural history when it is wisely in- 
troduced to them. (See Nature Study in 
the 8. 8.) Nevertheless, good as this is, 
the end and aim of the Sunday school is 
not merely to rear up a race of young 
naturalists. The teacher must be care- 
ful to show how all the beauty and wonder 
of nature lead up to God its maker, sus- 
tainer, very life; how, as Wordsworth 
found when he was but a boy, “there is a 
Spirit in the woods,” and that Spirit no 
other than God Himself, our Father. 
Simple stories necessarily come into the 
teaching of the Primary Department. 
The Bible stories are the best, but there 
is room for some stories from every-day 
life. It is well to have stories of what 
has really happened, rather than silly arti- 
ficial anecdotes—poor stuff not worthy of 
a child’s keen memory. But some fairy 
tales, notably the tales of Hans Ander- 
sen, truly religious in spirit and character, 
as so many of them are, may well have a 
place in the lessons of the Primary pupils. 
(See Primary Department; Stories and 
Story-Telling. ) 

II. Junior Department. Nature stud- 
ies and stories may still go on for the 
young children in this department, for 
they are still in the imaginative stage, 
loving to visualize. But now there is 
more opportunity for simple explanations 
of natural process with indications of 
God’s purposes in them—the uses of light 
and darkness, cold and heat, rain and 
wind, as signs of God’s goodness and also 
as parables of what God does in our lives 
and in what we call religion. But prob- 
ably nature studies should be used more 
sparingly in this department than in the 
Primary. Now is the time for the story. 
Nearly all the Bible stories can be used at 
this stage. (See Bible Stories for Chil- 
dren.) This will not leave room for 
much else, for they should have the first 


Extra-Biblical Studies 


place; nothing should be allowed to super- 
sede them, yet there may be room for some 
other stories. Deeds of heroism at sea, in 
a fire, and in other scenes of peril, culled 
from the newspaper, as well as striking 
events in history, may have a place here. 
Let them always be elevating and inspir- 
ing stories, never tales of wickedness or 
meanness even though these latter might 
be introduced for warning and as deter- 
rents. Very young children should be 
spared all sights and thoughts of evil. 
Let their fresh young fancy play only with 
things good and true and beautiful. 
Hang only the arras of strong chivalry in 
their chambers of imagery. (See Junior 
Department. ) 

ITI. Intermediate Department. Here 
the boys and girls are interested in con- 
crete facts. It is the place for lessons in 
history presented as biography. The con- 
secutive Bible history can now be learned. 
There is no time for adding consecutive 
English or other national history, nor is 
the Sunday school the place for that. But 
great historical scenes may be introduced 
—such as the legend of King Arthur, the 
work of Alfred the Great, who is worthy 
of a better memory than that of the 
spoiled cakes, the stories of Wycliffe, 
Luther (q. v.), the Reformation gener- 
ally ; the heroic fight for religious liberty ; 
the story of the abolition of slavery in the 
British possessions and in the United 
States, under Livingstone and in the 
Congo Valley. (See Intermediate De- 
partment. ) 

IV. The Senior Department. Is is here 
that the widest scope for extra-Biblical 
subjects should be found. If the teaching of 
the earlier years has been efficient a good 
general knowledge of the Bible should be 
assumed. (See Standards of Biblical 
Knowledge in the 8. 8.) Now is the 
time for applying that knowledge and the 
truths it contains. Historical, biograph- 
ical, and missionary subjects may well be 
treated; it may be possible to advance 
with Senior students beyond the mere 
concrete facts to questions of cause and 
principle—as for instance, the signifi- 
cance of the life of St. Francis and the 
Coming of the Friars; the influences 
leading to the Reformation and its effect 
on Europe; the origin and rise of the 
various Free Church denominations; the 
effects produced by leading lights in the 


399 


Extra-Biblical Studies 


religious world such as John Wycliffe, 
John Knox (g. v.), Richard Baxter, 
George Fox, John Wesley (gq. v.). In 
this department the great sociological and 
ethical problems may be profitably dis- 
cussed, if approached from a Christian 
standpoint. Perhaps it is among these 
subjects that the most vital discussions 
will be maintained. Lastly, questions of 
Biblical criticism, doubts and difficulties 
as to the faith, and popular objections to 
Christianity may be met. But here again 
a caution is necessary. It is easier to 
state difficulties than to answer them. An 
indiscreet teacher may even suggest un- 
dreamed of doubts to simple souls. The 
wiser course is to go on the positive line 
and show the sure foundations of faith. 
(See Senior Department.) 

V. The Question of Ways and Means. 
How is this extra-Biblical study to be con- 
ducted? It is by no means easy. Three 
requisites may be considered: 

(1) The Necessity of Teacher-training. 
Obviously most of the subjects referred to 
above are only available for capable teach- 
ers. The introduction of them contains 
a call for the best educated men and wo- 
men to take up the difficult but honor- 
able work of senior class teaching. For 
the rest the minister may superintend the 
preparation of the special lessons, meeting 
the teachers who are to take them for pri- 
vate preliminary study; or some member 
of the congregation may be found able 
and willing to take up this work. 

(2) The Method of the Study Circle. 
For these subjects the ordinary class 
method of teaching by one person and 
learning by all the others—never the best 
method—may well be superseded by the 
study circle method of common research. 
Let every member of the class do his part 
in collecting information or in contribut- 
ing ideas, preparing and reading short 
papers and discussing them, under the 
guidance of the teacher. This is espe- 
cially the method for seniors. But even 
junior pupils can do much more than is 
usually expected of them. 

(3) The Use of Inbraries. The school 
library should have a reference depart- 
ment well stocked with books containing 
information on the subjects indicated for 
class study. (See Library, 8. 8S.) In 
most towns there are free libraries to which 
both teachers and pupils can resort, It 


Extra-Biblical Studies 400 Extra-Biblical Studies 


would be well if the committees of these 
libraries would see that they were supplied 
with books likely to be needed in the newer 
and more extensive schemes of Sunday- 
school work. The local Sunday School 


Unions might take up the question. They 
should have sufficient influence in their 
own localities to induce the library com- 
mittees to obtain what is needed. 

W. F. ADENEY. 


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